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AN OLD FOGY 


BY 

MRS. J. H.’ WALWORTH 

AUTHOR OF “BAR SINISTER,” “NEW MAN AT ROSSMERE,” 
“WITHOUT BLEMISH,” ETC., ETC. 



THE MERRIAM COMPANY 

67 Fifth Avenue 





Copyright, 1895, 

BY 

THE MERRIAM COMPANY. 


AN OLD FOGY 


CHAPTER I. 

AFTER early lamplight the old Burnett house always 
presented the appearance of being hermetically sealed. 

Not that there were many people to be rebuffed by 
its inhospitable gloom, for it stood in the centre of a 
dense grove of trees ; and the grove of trees stood in 
the centre of far-stretching cotton fields ; and the cot- 
ton fields were hemmed in on all sides by forest trees 
only pierced on two sides by wagon roads. There was 
no neighboring mansion within four and a half miles 
of it, so it did not in the least matter how early it was 
closed and darkened. 

The window shutters were never, by any chance, 
left unfastened. There were a great many of them, 
and they were outside shutters, of the close-slatted, 
impenetrable pattern, through which no ray of light 
could escape. The closing of them involved, either a 
fresh-air excursion around the entire exterior of a large 

3 


4 


AN OLD FOGY. 


and rambling old plantation house, or else the forcible 
lifting of heavy sashes. As the sashes did not run 
on cords, but had to be propped up with sticks, or 
pokers, or boot-jacks — whichever might be nearest at 
hand — the fresh-air excursion commended itself as an 
economy of time and labor. 

The closing of all those shutters was Colonel Ethbert 
Burnett’s self-assumed duty ; one of the very few 
household regulations for which he was willing to be 
held personally responsible. The slam-banging that 
was absolutely essential to make the well-worn catches 
catch, would have suggested*a man in a towering rage, 
to any one not familiar with the colonel and his 
methods. 

Next to his long military mustache, the Colonel’s 
conscience was the most conspicuous thing about him. 
Having once exalted the closing of those shutters into 
the realm of duty, nothing short of illness or absence 
would ever have excused their being unclosed, five 
minutes after Mrs. Burnett — by lighting the Rochester 
lamp on the library table — declared the day was 
done. 

With the shutters all closed and the doors all locked, 
a fortress could not have presented a more forbidding 
front. Not even the concession of glass side-lights or 
a transom had been granted the heavy front door. 

There was, indeed, no particular point in having 
side-lights to a door which stood wide open all day 


AN OLD FOGY. 5 

long, and through which there was scarcely a possi- 
bility of any one passing after sunset. 

Watching the sun set behind the tall crowns of the 
environing forest trees was another occupation for the 
Colonel and Mrs. Burnett, which custom, backed by 
social aridity, had almost dignified by the name of duty. 
There was really nothing else to do at that hour of the 
day. 

The Colonel always completed his “ rounds ” of the 
plantation before the sun reached the tallest of the 
pecan trees, and would canter briskly homeward on 
Lem, his high-mettled black horse, placidly sure of 
finding Mrs. Burnett occupying one of the big splint- 
bottomed arm-chairs, that stood on the front-gallery 
the year round, taking their chances of rain or sun, 
or, else, slowly pacing its broad planks with her delicate 
blue-veined hands outlined upon her folded arms. 

There was not much for them to talk about. Per- 
haps he would tell her how the cotton was getting on 
in the willow slough field ; and perhaps she would 
tell him how many chickens she had found hatched 
out on her last visit to the henhouse. And then, side 
by side in that peaceful silence which paucity of ex- 
citement breeds, they would watch the sun set, for the 
beauty of it. And beauty was too scarce a commodity 
not to be made much of. 

Life had long since settled itself into a monotonous 
groove for the Burnetts, which would have been 


6 


AN OLD FOGY. 


deadly but for two things, its inevitability and its 
familiarity. 

When quite alone, before the Colonel and Black Lem 
had broken the dull stretch of sandy road between the 
brown cotton stalks, Mrs. Burnett, turning with slow 
grace in her gallery promenade, would ask herself, with 
a distinct sense of treachery, 

“ How she had ever inured herself to it ? ” Another 
question, before which treachery gave place to anxiety, 
was, 

“ Would the children ever be able to stand it?” 

“ It ” stood for the brooding stillness and the dreary 
isolation of a home-life which knew no variation, day 
in or day out, week in or week out, year in or year out. 

There was only one day of the week that had a flavor 
of spice above its fellows. That was mail-day. There 
were three, and only three, post-marks that ever brought 
a brighter light into her soft, dark eyes. One was, 
Baton Rouge, from whence came Stanford’s college-boy 
letters, bristling with enthusiasm over life in all its as- 
pects ; another was, Crystal Springs, from whence came 
Olivia’s school-girl jeremiads over the deprivations and 
the injustices inflicted at boarding-school, mitigated, in 
her case, by the near approach of graduation day ; the 
third was Brooklyn, where Margaret — or “ Miss Bur- 
nett,” as she liked to see it on the backs of envelopes — 
was getting a prolonged and dangerous draught of life 
as it was not lived on the old plantation home. Glad 


AN OLD FOGY. 


7 


as she was to get them always, the “ children’s ” 
letters left Mrs. Burnett’s heart a-flutter with anxious 
forebodings. 

Sometimes, after the ceremony of closing the shutters 
was performed, and the lamps were lighted, and the 
white and red chessmen were marshalled for the inevit- 
able contest that was to bridge over the yawning chasm 
between dusk and bedtime, her forebodings would find 
timid utterance : — 

“ Ethbert, I am afraid the children will find home 
dreadfully dull and lonely when they do come back. 
And Margaret cannot stay in Brooklyn much longer, 
without wearing out her welcome.” 

And the Colonel, looking his very fiercest, with his 
shaggy brows contracted and his big military mustache 
working violently in the effort to start his cigar, would 
answer indifferently : — 

“ Well, what are you going to do about it? You 
and I have never found it dreadfully dull, Mildred, and 
what is good enough for us ought to be good enough 
for our children.” 

“ Yes, but we are used to it.” 

“And they will have to get used to it. You know 
I never cordially endorsed Maggie’s acceptance of that 
invitation. Your first move to-night, my dear.” 

Upon which Mrs. Burnett would move her king’s 
pawn to his fourth square, with a sigh that held its 
mental reservations. 


8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Had she never found it frightfully dull? Had she 
really, unconsciously, subsided into the placid poultry- 
raiser, butter-maker, and small-fruit-culturer which had 
won her such distinguished laurels, locally ? 

Sometimes the mother fears that agitated her re- 
fused to be silenced by a single rebuff. She was espe- 
cially exigeant on a certain evening of the mail-day that 
had brought an account from Margaret of a “ lovely 
german ” and a “ perfectly delicious theatre-party.” 

“ But I am afraid they will not look at things through 
our glasses, Ethbert.” 

“Check! You are a most unsatisfactory player 
sometimes, Mrs. Burnett. Well, as I asked you be- 
fore, what are you going to do about it ? Margaret 
cannot take up her abode permanently at her Uncle 
George’s, and Olivia must get through this term. If I 
can carry Stanford through without any unpaid bills I 
will rejoice. Be so kind as to notice my check.” 

Mrs. Burnett retrieved her chess reputation by along 
and apparently studious contemplation of the board 
between them. 

The Colonel played chess because he loved it. Mrs. 
Burnett played chess because the Colonel loved it. In 
her soul she loathed the stately game, which, under the 
guise of recreation, made the most arduous demands 
upon her preoccupied brain. 

How could she hope to cope successfully with its 
subtile combinations, when she was thinking at one and 


AN OLD FOGY. 


9 


the same time, of her three scattered darlings, the too 
rapid depletion of the flour-barrel, and the various de- 
linquencies in the household service which ought to be 
dealt with rigidly ? 

She would much rather have devoted her lamp-lit 
hours to the week-old newspaper, or her darning basket, 
or — “ even to Scott or Dickens.” They were famous 
old stand-bys — ready to her hand, behind the glass- 
doors of the ancient bookcase that formed such a won- 
derful combination of drawers, writing-desk, and book- 
shelves. But the Colonel had so little recreation, and 
if she did not play chess with him every night he would 
work over those dismal plantation books which always 
left him worried and irritable. And his eyes were not 
at all strong. So there were many and potent reasons 
why the ivory warriors should be marshalled in battle 
array every evening. 

“ When Stan comes home he can take the books 
entirely off your hands,” she said, noting, with quick 
compunction, that the Colonel’s jaws had become a little 
hard set since that talk about the children. 

“ I fancy Stanford will care more for shooting wild- 

ducks than for book-keeping. But he’s not here yet, 

• • 

Mildred, nor will he be for six months if things go as 
they should. I believe it is your move.” 

This with considerable asperity. If there was one 
thing the Colonel could not forgive it was discursive- 
ness over the chess-board. 


10 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Mrs. Burnett held her hand suspended over a red 
knight so long that her husband lifted an impatient 
glance to her face. 

“ Well, my dear ! ” 

“ I thought I heard some one screaming.” 

“ An owl, I presume. I should think you were used 
enough to screech-owls. If you simply do not want 
to play chess to-night, pray say so.” 

“ No, but, Ethbert, listen please. Surely ” A 

heavy hurried footfall just outside the closed shutters of 
the library completed her nervousness. It was followed 
by a thundering blow upon their unyielding surface, 
loud enough to convince the Colonel that something 
besides screech-owls was abroad in the outer darkness. 
Mrs. Burnett paled. 

“ Some one is outside. There, on the violet beds 
under the window, Ethbert. Something is the matter. 
Do open the window.” 

The Colonel rose to his feet in slow bewilderment. 

What could possibly happen on his place to warrant 
screams and rushing feet at that hour of the night ? 
He had lived in that house more than fifty years, and 
nothing at all out of the way had ever happened 
before. At least not since the war. 

All this went through his well-ordered brain while 
he was lifting the heavy sash and unlocking the rusty 
hasp of the shutter with a hand that would tremble in 
spite of him. The Colonel always asked a precedent. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


II 


With the rush of outer air there entered a lurid glare. 
Silhouetted against a flame-lit sky stood Amanda, their 
cook, gesticulating wildly with the billet of stove-wood 
she had raised for another blow on the shutters. 

“ My Gawd, Colonel Burnett, is you plum-stone deef ? 
I been hollerin’ my lungs soa’ ev’y step I jump from 
my house to thisn. The work is on fire an’ we all goin’ 
to be scworched in our baids.” 

One outward glance, and then Colonel Burnett, 
stiffly erect, as if he had been o£ military drill, turned 
a blanched face towards his wife. 

“ Some devil has fired the gin ! The whole year’s 
crop was in it. We are ruined.” 

For a second a paralysis of inaction held him in 
iron bondage. Then with long, swift strides he strode 
for the yard premises, and yelled for his horse. 

Amanda’s shrill proclamation that the world was 
on fire and everybody was going to be scorched in bed, 
had already broken the heavy slumber of Andrew, 
whose chief occupation in life was saddling and un- 
saddling Black Lem. 

He was stumbling across the yard, only half aroused, 
when the Colonel sent that stentorian demand after 
him. 

“ My horse in two minutes, boy ! ” 

And by the time Black Lem, snorting his amazed 
resentment at this untimely call, had pranced up to 
the back steps, with Andrew shoeless and hatless on 


12 


AN OLD FOGY. 


his back, his master was standing, booted and spurred, 
gazing dumbly upon the ruin some fiend had wrought. 

Quite a mile across the treeless fields stood the 
stately gin-house, in and out of whose every crevice 
darted tongues of flame and volumes of black smoke. 
From where they stood they could see men moving 
to and fro about the burning building, excited but 
impotent. There was nothing to do. Nothing but a 
feeble handing of buckets of water from one to the 
other. By the light of the conflagration Mrs. Burnett 
could see the look of fixed despair upon her husband’s 
face. 

She had no words for this crisis. She put a soft, 
caressing hand on his arm. It was a mute offer of 
comfort. 

“Of course you are insured, Ethbert?” 

“ Expired yesterday. Was going to renew by to- 
morrow’s mail. It is always the way.” 

Then he leaped into the saddle, bending to make 
sure of his stirrups. 

A plaintive whisper smote his ear softly. “ Oh, 
Ethbert, do be careful.” 

“ Of what ? ” he asked grimly, plunging his spurs 
into the black horse so savagely that he was carried, at 
one bound, beyond the possibility of hearing her hesi- 
tating answer : — 

“ Of — of — falling timbers.” 

She had not meant that. She was not thinking of 


AN OLD FOGY. 


13 


falling timbers. But Andrew was standing there with 
starting eye-balls and dropped jaw, dimly realizing that 
a great crime had been committed on that slow-moving 
peace-begirt plantation since he had lain him down to 
his early slumbers. He would greatly have preferred 
following in the wake of black Lem and the Colonel, 
but that would have left “ Miss Milly her lone self,” 
and Andrew adored the lady of the “big house.” 

“Who done it, you reckon, Miss Milly?” But she 
did not hear him. She was thinking of her husband. 
One against hundreds ! 

Might not the hand that was capable of applying the 
torch be equal to still darker deeds ? 

She had followed the sound of his horse’s hoof-beats 
until it was swallowed up in the soft dirt road. Then 
she had lost the dark moving mass of man and 
horse behind the clumps of willows that fringed the 
gin slough. Now, there they were once more, stand- 
ing clear-cut against a background of flames as motion- 
less as an equestrian statue in bronze. She glued her 
eyes to that spot. 

There was nothing for him to do. If only he would 
find nothing to say. It would be so useless. So 
much worse than useless. A deathlike stillness en- 
wrapped her, the ruddy light was dying out of the sky, 
great billows of black smoke obliterated the stars. If 
Ethbert would only come back ! 

She moaned aloud in her pain. 


14 


AN OLD FOGY. 


From his lowly seat on the bottom steps Andrew 
essayed a message of humble comfort. 

“ Somebody been doin’ the devil’s own work on this 
place to-night. But you go to bed, Miss Milly, and 
Andrew’ll see that nobody don’t pester you.” 

Then the tears that she had held back so bravely 
fell in a hot torrent. And Andrew grieved that his 
good intentions had gone astray. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


15 


CHAPTER Ii. 

It was with a distinct sense of injury at the hands of 
Providence that Colonel Ethbert Burnett strode up 
and down the length of the long front gallery, on a 
certain gray morning, some weeks after the burning of 
his gin-house. 

“ Stormed ” up and down, would, perhaps, more ade- 
quately express his tempestuous progress. Every 
fibre of the physical man responded to his mental per- 
turbation. They always did. 

He had thrust his long, nervous fingers through his 
thick gray hair until every separate hair asserted itself 
prominently. He had twisted the ends of his big 
mustache so violently that they stood straight out, 
making him look dreadfully brigandish. With his 
thumbs inserted in the arm-holes of his waistcoat his 
elbow sassumed aggressive angles. 

In obedience to some occult law of adhesion 
peculiar to masculine headgear, his hat maintained a 
precarious position on the back of his head. 

The hat was misleading, and led to something akin 
to tragedy. Observing it on his master’s head instead 
of the hat-rack, the Colonel’s favorite setter approached 


1 6 


AN OLD FOGY. 


confidently, and sociably indicated his entire readiness 
to go birding by a brisk series of tail-waggings. 

He got a kick for his affability, and retired to the 
rear premises with crushed sensibilities and a bruised 
nose. 

The Colonel could stand a great deal of luxury with- 
out flinching. It was generally understood, that, when 
he was discovered in one of the big gallery chairs on 
off hours, he was going to smoke an extra cigar. He 
flung himself into a chair, spent and white with his 
mental excitement. That action also was misleading. 

The house-girl, on her very best behavior since the 
“white folks had been so upset,” appeared promptly 
with a cuspadore. 

She got roared at for offlciousness, and was told, with 
awful sternness, that, when the Colonel wanted a cus- 
padore he would order one. 

She was paralyzed with astonishment, and assured 
Amanda, when she reached the kitchen, that she “ never 
had seen the Colonel in such a pucker.” 

During the passage of the years necessary for bringing 
one son and two daughters to years of discretion, Mrs. 
Burnett had contracted the habit of calling her hus- 
band “ papa,” with a caressing inflection. Sometimes, 
he was “ the Colonel,” at others, notably when it 
became imperative she should assert herself, he was 
“ Mr. Burnett,” through barely parted lips. 

In view of the kick actual and kick implied that had 


AN OLD FOGY. 


17 

been bestowed upon his dog and her maid, she con- 
sidered it advisable to pour oil upon the troubled waters. 
After all, “ Poor papa, it was dreadfully hard on him.” 

She came forward working a buttonhole, which would 
complete a pair of shaker-flannel drawers for him. She 
made pretence of great cheerfulness, that was not, how- 
ever, any deeper seated than her eyes and lips. 

A great bronze turkey-gobbler was strutting and 
swelling in the front yard, very much as the Colonel had 
been strutting and fuming on the front gallery. 

She made some irrelevant remarks about his probable 
weight when she should come to kill him for Christmas. 

Her husband admonished her by a dark glance that 
he was not to be switched off the main grievance by 
such a puerile suggestion of good to come. Upon 
which she became more direct. 

“ I would not take things so dreadfully hard, papa, 
if I were you. Really one would think this blow had 
fallen exclusively on your shoulders. Don’t be so 
dreadfully downcast. We will come out all right in 
the end. I am quite sure we will.” 

The Colonel took a tighter hold upon his arm-holes 
and stretched his long legs to their utmost capacity. 
He seemed to be pondering the advisability of answer- 
ing a fool according to his folly, so contemptuously 
did his big mustache go up and then down. 

A flush of belated resentment mounted slowly to his 
wife’s temples. She turned her back on him, and 


i8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


busied her fingers with the dead leaves that had fluttered 
to the floor from the frost-nipped Madeira vines, fes- 
tooned over the front steps. Her husband’s answer 
came to her like a fresh touch of frost. 

“ I very much doubt, my dear, if you are capable of 
taking anything as hard as I do. That is, if you choose 
so to express a man’s giving way, occasionally, to his 
most refined sensibilities. You are not a Burnett.” 

Mrs. Burnett regarded her completed work reflect- 
ively. She was glad his drawers were done, so that 
she could get at his dressing-gown. She bit off her 
thread with strong white teeth and looked at him 
pleasantly. 

“ No, I am a La Pice, as everybody knows.” 

“ And ” — the Colonel was on his feet again, and, spin- 
ning rapidly on one heel, made a little dust ring on 
the floor — “you have not been surrounded all your life 
by the objects on which your infantile eye first rested. 
This house was not built by your great grandfather. 
It has not been occupied by your ancestors for more 
than a hundred years. Every nail in its floor is dear 
to me, and I would be a brute, rather than a man of 
some slight sensibility, if I did not feel this cruel blow 
keenly.” 

Perhaps the closing clause of the Colonel’s rhapsody 
appealed to the sensibilities of his dog, who appeared 
in the front doorway at that moment, dejected, but 
quite ready to forgive the cruel blow he felt keenly. 


AN OLD FOGY. 19 

Mrs. Burnett accepted the obloquy of her implied 
natal inferiority cheerfully. 

“No, I had a great-grandpapa, but I believe he 
was nothing but a doctor, and lived always in large 
cities ; here and there and everywhere, as professional 
men must.” 

“ Which accounts,” the Colonel graciously conceded, 
“ in a measure, I presume, for the facility with which 
you can adjust yourself to change. It is in your 
blood.” 

“ Occasional change of locality and association has a 
broadening tendency, don’t you think, Ethbert ? It is 
like varying one’s diet, and I know you like that.” 

But the Colonel was not to be entrapped into an 
impersonal discussion on any subject. Things were 
good or bad as they touched him. People were noble 
or ignoble as they affected his destinies. And, just 
now, both things and people were at a savage discount 
with him. 

“ Well, our chances of being broadened by change 
of location are imminent. Those robbers, those vam- 
pires, have given me only until the first of the year to 
make my arrangements for evacuation. It is comfort- 
ing to reflect that at least one member of the family 
will enjoy being homeless.” 

“ Somewhere in our family,” said Mrs. Burnett, with 
placid inconsequence, “ there is a great silver urn pre- 
sented to my father — you know he was a doctor too — 


20 


AN OLD FOGY. 


for distinguished services during a New Orleans yellow- 
fever epidemic. Dear me, what a litter these vines do 
keep the gallery in.” 

That bit of family history contributed by the La 
Pice side of the house was quite familiar to every 
member of it. But the Burnett traditions always out- 
ranked the La Pice. The Colonel waived the silver 
urn aside somewhat irritably. 

“ I know, I know, my dear Mildred. Doubtless your 
great-grandfather and your most estimable father were 
very useful members of society ; but, just now, we have 
matters of more vital interest to discuss. You, I am 
glad to reflect, will never be called on to experience the 
bitterness of being robbed of your ancestral acres.” 

Mrs. Burnett’s fine sense of justice impelled her to 
protest against the word “ robbed.” 

“ Oh, I can’t think it quite right, Ethbert, to speak 
of Mandeville and Cuthbert as robbers.” 

The Colonel flung himself wrathfully into the big 
leather chair. 

“ Don’t add fuel to the flames, Mildred, by champion- 
ing my enemies, I beg of you. I say robbed.” He 
brought his clinched fists forcibly down upon the arm 
of his chair. “ Robbed mercilessly and without warn- 
ing.” 

Mrs. Burnett smiled. It was almost impossible to 
avoid smiling when the Colonel’s temper ran completely 
away with his vocabulary. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


21 


“ I don’t think, papa, it is customary to warn one 
when robbery is meditated. But, I should say that 
for five years we have lived under the sombre shadow 
of a very explicit warning. And this foreclosure cer- 
tainly ought not to surprise us, however else we may 
be affected by it.” 

The Colonel lay back, spent with emotion, and 
stretched his arms wide as if he would fain clasp his 
ancestral acres in one last fond embrace. He moaned 
tragically : 

“ All gone ! All gone ! ” 

There had come emergencies into her married life, 
swift-rushing rapids precipitated into a very sluggish 
current, over whi'ch nothing had ever helped Mrs. Bur- 
nett to “shoot” safely ; but falling back upon her sense 
of the ridiculous, something struck her at this junc- 
ture as immensely funny. Between Ethbert, crimsoned 
with rage, inflated with a sense of personal importance, 
clamorously protestant against the existing order of 
things, and the bronze turkey-gobbler, strutting about 
the yard with swelling breast and crimsoned wattles, 
gobbling angrily in response to the Colonel’s raised 
voice, there was a comical resemblance. 

She wished she could point it out to Ethbert, but 
that would hardly do. She wished she could laugh 
aloud, but that would hardly do, either. So she was 
reduced to the old well-worn verbiage : 

“ Don’t take things so very hard, papa.” 


22 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ The home of my fathers. The lands that have 
been in the Burnett family over a hundred years, to 
go to — whom ? ” 

It was really becoming exasperating. Mrs. Burnett’s 
eyes narrowed and her caressing voice hardened. 

“ After all, Mr. Burnett, imposing as it sounds, there 
is a good deal of what Stan calls, ‘ blasted nonsense, 
don’t you know,’ about ancestral acres. Individually 
I would rather have one acre in potatoes or turnips, 
uncovered by mortgages, or unpestered by coco-grass, 
than all your dismal cotton acreage which has only been 
plungingyou deeper in debt every year since the war.” 

“ Stanford is an irreverent scamp, who never could 
have grown up to sneer at his father unless his mother 
had encouraged the practice.” 

“ You know better than that, Mr. Burnett.” When 
Mrs. Burnett narrowed her eyes and called him “ Mr. 
Burnett,” through barely parted lips the Colonel rec- 
ognized the moment for retraction. 

“ Of course, of course, Mildred. Don’t take one so 
very literally. But all this is excessively trying, and 
Stanford is inclined to irreverence.” 

“ The age is irreverent,” said Mrs. Burnett, conclu- 
sively, “ and our boy belongs to the age.” 

“ Most emphatically. I wish Stanford was our oldest 
instead of our youngest child.” 

“Why? ” 

She opened questioning eyes. She was leaning 


AN OLD FOGY. 23 

against the gallery railing, running her unthreaded 
needle in and out of her folded work. 

“ Because, well — because — at such a serious juncture 
as this a man naturally desires the help and comfort 
which only another man can give him.” 

There would have been a fine opportunity for some 
women to ring in something tart about the relative 
strength of men and women. Instead, with a smile of 
ineffable sweetness, she answered : 

“ I think our Margaret will prove our main depend- 
ence, husband. I must write to the dear child to-night 
and tell her everything. Or would you rather I should 
telegraph her to come home at once ? ” 

“ Home. By the time she could get here she would 
have no more rights here than the veriest stranger. This 
place belongs to Mandeville and Cuthbert, commission 
merchants. I beg of you not to lose sight of that 
fact.” 

“ Then perhaps I had better write to George. Of 
course they will have to know everything, and I will 
tell him I want him to keep Maggie until our plans are 
more settled.” 

The Colonel turned his head restlessly. Through 
the open doorway he could see into the library where 
his desk stood open, and all over and about it lay a 
promiscuous litter of torn bills, contracts reduced to 
tatters, letters, jagged and scattered, just where he had 
scattered and left them all in his frenzied efforts to 


24 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ straighten his papers out.” He was thinking of 
Mandeville and Cuthbert. “And I must write to them 
too. There is no getting around it, this time.” 

“ I don’t think we want to get around it, do we 
Ethbert ? We have put it off and dodged it and blinked 
it too long already. It was inevitable, and we have 
known that it was for, oh, such a long time. The fire 
only precipitated it.” 

The Colonel heaved a deep-chested sigh. “ And 
sister Catherine has to be told. It will grieve her 
sorely to see the old homestead pass out of the family. 
Of course every one will blame me.” 

“Then every one will be cruelly unjust. No one 
knows as well as I do against what tremendous odds 
you have been fighting, you poor dear brave victim of 
circumstances. There, now.” 

And the wife’s verdict of acquittal was sealed with a 
kiss on the brow where worry and disappointment were 
ploughing deep lines. 

“ I must write to those fellows at once.” 

“ Suppose you light your cigar and think it over 
placidly before you write.” 

“ Think it over placidly ! Women have so limited 
a capacity for gauging calamity.” 

The Colonel’s manner breathed a fine scorn of his 
wife’s mental capacity, but he took her advice. He 
bit the end off a cigar, lighted it, and, by the time it 
had accumulated sufficient ashes to establish its excel- 


AN OLD FOGY. 


25 


lence, the hand that held it dropped heavily to the arm 
of the big chair. The Colonel had found temporary 
oblivion from all his perplexities. 

Mrs. Burnett tip-toed softly into the house to fetch a 
palmetto fan. There were flies in the air and some of 
them might select the broad shining expanse of the 
Colonel’s fine forehead for a promenade. 

The bronze gobbler gobbled sociably. She flung a 
bit of broken flower pot at him, which made him lower 
his crest. The great Plymouth rock rooster crowed 
triumphantly over the gobbler’s discomfiture. They 
were hereditary enemies. Mrs. Burnett scurried noise- 
lessly down the low steps and routed him. 

Poor Ethbert ! This fore closure was a terrible 
blow to his pride. And with all his irrascibility and 
impatience he was a type of the highest order. She 
knew him. It was a wife’s verdict upon a husband, 
transmitted from a clear brain to a loving heart. 

And while she carefully guarded his slumbers, 
perched on the arm of his easy-chair, in the girlish 
attitude she had affected in bridehood days, she 
mentally composed her letters to the children, taking 
care to select the words that would most surely soften 
to them the hard fact that the Burnetts were home- 
less. 

“ And they have never known any home but this,” 
she reflected, gazing through a sudden mist, at the 
familiar front door-yard, with its long rows of zenias 


26 


AN OLD FOGY. 


and chrysanthemums brightening the edges of the 
sunken brick walk ; at Andrew, scattering the milk- 
white ash chips from the blade of his shining axe, and 
at Amanda coming through the garden gate with her 
apron full of vegetables for dinner. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


27 


CHAPTER III. 

“ ETHBERT was always the soul of honor. A high- 
toned punctilious little fellow even before he was well 
out of knee-breeches. Whether a thing was honor- 
able or dishonorable was the test he always applied 
before action. Now George was altogether different. 
He was more eager to accumulate. He always wanted 
to know if a thing would, or, would not pay. And, 
although, of course, he never would do anything not 
perfectly honest, he was not so scrupulously nice 
about sifting the matter beforehand/' 

Having thus summarized the men under discussion, 
Mrs. Catherine Loyd leaned back in her big chintz 
padded chair, and gazed reflectively through the open 
window which gave her a comprehensive view of the 
vegetable garden. 

Before making any reply, Mrs. Burnett crocheted 
two rounds on the table mat she always took with her 
when she went to spend the day with “ sister Cathe- 
rine.” 

“ In spite of which, brother George is a decided suc- 
cess, while my poor husband is a — a ” then in 

violent crescendo, “ No, he is not a failure. He is not 


28 


AN OLD FOGY. 


a failure in any respect. Circumstances have told 
against him cruelly since the war. He has breasted 
billow after billow of misfortune with a manliness that 
many a strong swimmer would have lacked. He has 
wasted the best years of his life in a foolish effort to 
save the old homestead from passing out of the family. 
One can scarcely say why, because the family passed 
out of it so long ago that the game was hardly worth 
the candle.” 

Mrs. Loyd nodded her gray side-curls in acquies- 
cence. 

“ Yes, poor Bertie always had the family sentiment 
to an excess. But, speaking of George’s success, I 
should say ‘ because,’ instead of ‘ in spite of ’ his lower 
standards.” She paused impressively, then proceeded 
didactically : 

“ Success in money-making, I have always main- 
tained, necessarily involves the abrogation of certain 
nice distinctions, scruples, if you choose. We won’t 
go so far as to say it demands the adoption of a certain 
amount of unscrupulosity, will we, Mildred dear?*” 

“ Oh, my, no, sister Catherine.” 

“And I am afraid that Ethbert’s very fastidious- 
ness in small matters incapacitates him for coping with 
the world in its altered aspect. He grew up under 
such a different dispensation. After all, success is very 
much like a nettle. If you grasp it with force and 
rapidity you miss the sting of slower effort.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


2 9 


Mrs. Loyd had assumed her most judicial manner. 
She was the high tribunal from which no Burnett 
ever appealed. She was the eldest living member of 
the family, and was, perhaps, the only person in all 
Fletcher County, who could possibly have recalled the 
Colonel as a “ little fellow, before he was well out of 
knee-breeches.” 

She was essentially a woman of yesterday. She had 
reached her majority under a different dispensation, as 
she always called it. 

To her the Emancipation proclamation must always 
stand out conspicuously as an egregious blunder on 
the part of fallible men, totally ignorant of the true 
status of the emancipated. 

Things had been Divinely ordered before the war. 
And, in obedience to the decrees of Providence, life 
had been lived in peace and comfort by every one 
whom she knew anything about. She was conspicu- 
ously aware that a tremendous amount of friction had 
entered since, and she regarded the world now as a 

"A •• 

badly *damaged piece of mechanism, that jolted and 
jarred every nerve in her refined organism. 

To the casual observer, there was not much awry 
in Mrs. Loyd’s material environment, even under the 
new dispensation. Her home was still in the stately 
old red brick house, whose Ionic portico and colonial 
front door, hid their composite attractions behind great 
shining-leaved magnolias and long-needled pines, so 


30 


AN OLD FOGY. 


that one must put quite a mile between them and the 
green wooden outer gate, before setting foot on its 
low stucco steps. 

The sinuous drive-way was shaded by live oaks, that 
she and the Judge had planted during their honey- 
moon. 

The Judge had long since left her in unshared pos- 
session of the grounds, and the magnolias, and the 
great crimson japonica trees which dropped their thick, 
velvety petals on the second story window-sills. 

Behind the spreading fan-light of the old colonial 
door were gathered treasures of art, brought home 
from foreign lands, when she and the Judge were fond 
of making annual pilgrimages. And when strangers 
came to Rosalia, the county seat of Fletcher County, 
Mrs. Loyd was sure of a petition that they might be 
brought out to “ The Pines ” to see her and her pictures. 
Strangers generally went away more seriously im- 
pressed by the stately dame herself, than by her artistic 
surroundings. 

In the quaint square library, at the back of the old 
house, where the book-shelves climbed to the ceiling, 
showing serried ranks of solemnly imposing volumes, 
she reigned supreme. One was always sure of finding 
her there, with a big bowl of pink azaleas or purple 
hyacinths making a bright spot in the sombre stateliness 
of her surroundings. 

The parlor at “ The Pines ” was only used for state 


AN OLD FOGY. 


31 


occasions. There had been weddings, and christenings, 
and even balls, that warranted the unfettering of its 
long lemon-colored damask curtains, and the removal 
of holland shrouds from the yellow satin furniture. 
But as a rule, an almost unbroken rule of late years, its 
gleaming marbles and antiquated splendors in bronze 
or porcelain, its big flowered carpet, with medallion 
centre-piece, were not often called into requisition. 

The last home-wedding had taken place many years 
before, and the last baby christening a few years before. 
“ The old home has grown much too large,” Mrs. Loyd 
would often say with pathetic inaccuracy. 

Mrs. Burnett had driven over from “ The Hollows ” 
with a letter to read to sister Catherine. She had 
tramped all over the premises before locating her. 

Colonel Burnett called his sister, “ the most remark- 
able all-’round woman he had ever known.” 

He meant by that, that she was a voracious news- 
paper reader, who, even in the remoteness of her exist- 
ence from the world’s centres of thought and activity, 
kept pace with its progress, and made the best of her 
isolation. That she could dilate upon the political 
economy of nations in one breath, and tell you how 
best to mend your broken barb-wire fence in the next. 
One in search of her was just as likely to find her with 
Zola’s last in her hand, or drawing on a pair of dilapi- 
dated gloves preparatory to loosening the ground about 
her hyacinths. 


32 


AN OLD FOGY. 


On that particular morning Mrs. Ethbert had run 
her to earth in the vegetable garden, where she was 
personally conducting the onion planting, and had 
brought her back to the book-lined library, telling 
her on the way of the letter that had come from the 
“ Brooklyn Burnetts,” and the agitation it had created 
in the Colonel’s bosom. 

Mrs. Loyd carried the bulky letter in her clay-soiled 
fingers. Mrs. Ethbert had thrust it at her very promptly. 
She glanced at it when they had seated themselves in 
the library, and flung it into her sister-in-law’s lap. 

“ Read it aloud, Milly. George does write an out- 
rageous hand. I am always losing his meaning in try- 
ing to capture his sentences. But wait, you poor starved 
dear. A ten mile drive and not even a glass of water 
offered you.” 

She rang a bell that always stood at her elbow, and 
ordered a cup of tea “at once.” Mrs. Ethbert pro- 
tested. She had stopped at Rosalia on her way over, 
and was not at all tired. 

“You will be before that cup of tea comes,” said 
Mrs. Loyd, settling herself to listen, by adjusting the 
head-rest on the back of her tall rocking-chair, and 
planting her elbows so as to give free play for her long, 
pliable fingers. She had a trick of fitting their taper 
ends together ydidh she was thinking deeply, and re- 
garding them frowningly as if they ..too had gotten 
out of kelter along with the rest of her belongings. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


33 


“ ‘ At once ’ means, nowadays, just when my eman- 
cipated cook sees fit to let you have it. It used to be 
very different. Why didn’t Ethbert come with 
you ? ” 

“ I left him in Rosalia. He had some papers to 
sign, and there were some lawyers to be seen about 
something. He said he thought I could make things 
as clear to you as he could.” 

“ Oh, as far as that goes it is as clear as crystal now. 
He has found it utterly impossible, under the new dis- 
pensation, to work the old place out of debt, and the 
commission merchants are tired of waiting for a pay- 
day that is never likely to come. I told Ethbert, years 
ago, that he was sacrificing his life to a sentiment.” 

“ 1 The Hollow ’ means more to him, sister Catherine, 
than it possibly can to you. It ceased to be frome to 
you fifty years ago.” 

“Yes, the Judge and I were married just that long 
ago. Dear, dear, it does seem such a little while ago 
that I helped him to catalogue these books. And he 
left me alone twelve years ago. But I was very fond 
of ‘ The Hollow’ as a girl.” 

Viewed through the mist of many intervening years 
Mrs. Loyd’s girlhood seemed an intangible tradition 
of no immediate interest, so Mrs. Burnett unfolded 
the Brooklyn letter for a third reading. 

The Colonel had read it to her, and she had read it 
herself on the way over, so now she was prepared to 
3 


AN OLD FOGY. 


34 

deal quite glibly with its vague characters. The letter 
began — 

“ ‘ My dear brother Ethbert — my wife and I 

Mrs. Loyd laughed softly. George’s “ my wife and 
I ” was a standing family joke, — “ ‘ have talked this 
fresh trouble of yours over seriously, with a view to 
helping you. out of it, if we possibly can.’ ” 

Mrs. Ethbert interrupted herself with kindling eyes. 

“ George really writes as if his brother had the habit 
of tumbling into misfortune as a helpless kitten might 
into a tub of cold water.” 

“ My dear Mildred, the letter, please.” Mrs. Loyd 
was leaning back with closed eyes, and nicely fitted 
finger-tips. 

“ I beg your pardon. I will read straight to the end 
this time. 

“ ‘And we can see nothing better for you than a com- 
plete uprooting and burning of your bridges behind 
you. My wife and I have foreseen for some time past, 
that you must have been literally holding on by your 
eyelids and, what has happened, the foreclosure, I 
mean, must have happened before long, even if those 
rogues had not burned down your gin-house to hide 
their theft of your cotton. 

“ ‘ You must have saved something out of the wreck. 
Personally I mean, such as your cows and furniture, 
and carriages and silver. Things on which Mandeville 
and Cuthbert have no clutch. Now I advise you to 


AN OLD FOGY. 


35 

realize on such things as promptly as possible, and 
come North with your wife and children. I should not 
recommend a public auction, things fetch so little under 
the hammer ’ ” 

Mrs. Loyd here opened her eyes to say, “ Poor 
Bertie I know he squirmed under that. He is so 
fastidious.” 

“ He did,” said Mrs. Ethbert curtly. 

“ ‘ And what you want is money. What we all want 
is money.’ ” 

Mrs. Loyd frowned at her finger-tips. “ George has 
grown both coarse and sordid since he left us. Go on, 
Milly.” 

“‘You are to all intents and purposes a young man. 
Younger than I am, perhaps, in spite of four years to 
my credit. Men don’t last as long nor wear so well 
in this rushing sort of life. So you can’t fall back on 
your age. You had a much better education to start 
on than I had, for you always took more kindly to 
your books than I did. But I’ve played my hand 
well enough, as a man. I may not be the head man in 
the race, neither am I the tail man. I’ve made myself 
pretty solid with the railroad men, and am tolerably 
well known on the Street.’ ” 

“ 1 The Street ! ’ He speaks as if there were but one 
street in Brooklyn.” 

“ The Colonel says that means Wall Street in New 
York City,” Mrs. Ethbert explained. 


36 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Of course it does. How obtuse of me.” Mrs. 
Loyd blushed aLsuch a lapse on her own part. Mrs. 
Burnett turned back to the letter. 

‘“You ought to do as well here as I have done. And 
you will, doubtless, when you get a little used to the 
ropes and acquire some push. Cheek and push — that’s 
all you need have, my dear old fellow, and it would be 
as useless for you to come here without such an equip- 
ment, as for you to go into battle with empty car- 
tridges. 

“ ‘ Of course at such a distance I can’t advise you what 
to get at. But there is work here for everybody, of 
some sort or other. I found it pretty promptly too. 
There is no good reason why you should not. 

“ ‘ As for Maggie, we will look out for her until you 
are quite settled. There is a fellow on the other side 
of the bridge who would not be averse to looking out 
for her for good and all.’ ” 

“ Oh, I could not do without Margaret,” said Mrs. 
Burnett in quick alarm. 

Mrs. Loyd’s patrician nostrils expanded scornfully. 

“ A fellow from over the bridge — meaning, I presume, 
a gentleman from New York. George does not ex- 
press himself very elegantly. ‘ Hasn’t time,’ he would 
say. Well, what else has the successful man of the 
family to say for himself and his methods ? ” 

“ Only this : 

“ ‘ I am quite sure sister Catherine will agree with 


AN OLD FOGY. 37 

me and advise you to this move. My wife and I send 
love to her and Mildred.’ ” 

Then the letter was finished and Mrs. Burnett returned 
it to its envelope in rigid silence. “ Sister Catherine ” 
must express herself on the situation entirely unbiased. 

“ I don’t know what on earth Ethbert can do when 
he gets there,” Mrs. Loyd said at last, opening her eyes 
and wrinkling her forehead in perplexity. “He is 
such a reserved, dignified old fogy, so unalterably 
fixed in his high standards of right and wrong. I am 
afraid he will be swept off his feet in that swift-rushing 
tide of commercial competition.” 

Mrs. Burnett smiled a trifle bitterly. 

“ It appears to me, sister Catherine, that he has 
already been swept off his feet in a very slow-moving 
current. Then,” conclusively, “ as we must leave Bur- 
nett’s Hollow by the first of the year, we must go 
somewhere.” 

“ I see you are in favor of this move.” 

“ I am in favor of anything, rather than nothing.” 
Then, more gently, “ Of course the Colonel did not 
want to send his brother a final answer without con- 
sulting you.” 

“ Of course not.” 

Mrs. Loyd was distinctly aware of what was due her. 
It would have been without precedent for either one of 
“ the boys,” to decide any matter of general family 
interest without consulting her. 


38 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Mrs. Burnett was regarding her anxiously. 

“ And you see what George says about there being 
work for everybody?” 

“ Oh, I presume that is true enough. Ethbert’s 
trouble will be to find his particular needle in an im- 
mensely large hay-stack. His life’s training has not 
fitted him especially for needle-hunting. And when a 
man has been in positions of command for half a 
lifetime, he finds it difficult to obey. I think Ethbert 
would suffer keenly from loss of identity in a large city. 
He has lived all his life where everybody knew him 
and knew him favorably.” 

“ But George went to a large city. And he knew 
nobody at first.” 

“ George is different. He is cast in a rougher mould. 
Moreover, he settled in the North immediately after 
the war, when standards were being readjusted and the 
old issues were being handled by the men who had 
fought the fight out manfully and openly. A new 
element has crept in since then. An element of inher- 
ited acrimony imported from the farms by ignorant 
holders on to dead issues of which they knew nothing 
as live ones.” 

Mrs. Burnett always retired into a shell of silence 
when her sister-in-law ventured upon the turgid sea of 
politics. She really could not follow her. She was 
glad that the immediate cup of tea, ordered quite an 
hour before, arrived at that juncture. 


AN OLD FOGY. 39 

“ You do excel in tea-making, sister Catherine. 
This is English breakfast, is it not?” 

“ Mixed,” said Mrs. Loyd, stirring her own cup 
absently. 

When she spoke again it was with an air of finality. 

“ Give poor Bertie my love, Mildred, and tell him 
that, after turning this thing over in my mind in every 
possible way, I don’t see what there is for him to do 
but to go.” 

“ I thought you would think so. Poor Ethbert, it 
is going to be very hard on him.” 

“ It is going to be very hard on me,” said Mrs. Loyd, 
bringing herself into the discussion for the first time. 

She was a rarely impersonal woman, and seldom en- 
tertained others with herself. 

Then the two women sighed and sipped their tea in 
silence. 

When Mrs. Burnett had clambered into the buggy 
for her long, lonely drive of six miles back to Rosalia, 
where she was to pick the Colonel up on her way home, 
Mrs. Loyd placed a parcel, wrapped in a newspaper, on 
the seat by her side. 

“ There are some of those sweet plum pickles Bertie 
likes so much. Tell him I have just two jars left and 
I want him to have one. Of course he will come to 
see me before he goes away.” 

“ Oh, of course,” said Mrs. Burnett, looking at the 
stately old dame through a mist. 


40 


AN OLD FOGY. 


CHAPTER IV. 

“ Tom, dear, I hate to interrupt you, but things are 
drawing to a crisis, and I need your advice dreadfully.” 

Mr. Tom Burnett brought the Indian clubs which he 
was swinging dexterously to an abrupt standstill, and 
faced his mother with bright, questioning eyes. 

“ You have heard from them then? ” 

“ Your father has.” 

“ And they are coming?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Good.” 

“ I don’t know whether it is or not, my dear boy ! ” 

She was casting about her with despairing eyes. 
Not a chair nor a sofa, nor a stool even, but what 
groaned under some of Tom’s misplaced accretions. 

“ If you would only let me bring Virginia in here 
once a month, things might look a trifle less disreput- 
able.” 

Tom laughed and swept a heap of his belongings 
from an arm-chair to a table. 

“ If a lady will invade a bachelor’s den at such un- 
conventional hours she must take the consequences.” 

From the easy depths of the arm-chair his mother 


AN OLD FOGY. 


41 


followed him with adoring eyes as he proceeded briskly 
with his toilet. 

“ I suppose if I had not interrupted the clubs, I 
would have interfered with the dumb-bells or brought 
you down from the bars. I have to take you as I 
can.” 

“ I am afraid I am an awful nuisance about the 
house. Kitty says I make her think of earthquakes 
and things. But it’s good to stretch your muscles and 
inflate your lungs before going to desk-work, don’t 
you think, mummer?” 

He was standing in front of his mirror, brushing his 
short, thick brown hair vigorously with two brushes at 
once. Mrs. Burnett cast furtive glances of admiration 
at his great strong square shoulders. 

“ I would not have an inch less of you, Tom. And 
if Kitty finds your gymnasium annoying she can move 
into the back alcove. I have told her so several times.” 

“ Not for anything! Kitty’s all right. So am I. 
But, how about the Bertie Burnetts? ” 

“ Brooklyn Burnetts” and “ Bertie Burnetts” was a 
purely family distinction between the northern and 
southern branches. 

“ We are in for it, my dear. Your uncle Ethbert 
writes in a very dignified and manly way about it all. 
Rather depreciates his own ability, and is not at all 
hopeful for himself, but can see nothing better to do. 
Thinks Stanford ought to succeed here.” 


42 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Of course.” 

“ Of course what, son ? ” 

“ Of course he depreciates himself. I fancy he hasn’t 
an ounce of conceit in his whole ‘ make-up.’ ” 

“ Then I am sorry for him.” 

“ So am I.” 

“ But he is not at all cowardly. Says that late in 
the day as it is for him to be entering the race, he hopes 
he will not be found a drone in this big hive.” 

“ Metaphor somewhat mixed, but man all right. 
You have never seen Uncle Bert, I believe, mummer ? ” 

“ No. Only those pictures of himself and his wife 
hanging in the hall-bedroom.” 

“Aunt Milly must be awfully pretty, and Uncle 
Ethbert is a gentleman to the backbone. He will al- 
ways be that even if he were out-at-elbows and down- 
at-heels.” 

Mrs. Burnett shivered as if a cold blast had blown 
down her spinal cord. “ My dear Tom, don’t picture 
such horrible possibilities. No gentleman of education, 
with a particle of enterprise, need ever be reduced to 
unsightly poverty. I am quite sure your father never 
could, so why should his own brother ? ” 

“ I don’t say that he ever will be out-at-elbows, 
mummer dear ; I said, he was the sort of man one could 
be fond of even under such a melancholy dispensa- 
tion.” 

“ I disagree with you entirely.” Mrs. Burnett sat up 


AN OLD FOGY. 


43 


with such imperious decision that the soft undulations 
of her satin tea-gown shimmered in the morning sun- 
shine. “ Poverty is utterly unlovely and degrading, 
and no amount of personal merit can dignify it. But 
the Bert Burnetts are not actually destitute, son.” 

“ So near it that there isn’t much fun in it. It is 
pretty rough on a man at my uncle’s time of life, to 
begin de novo. Hang me, if it isn’t. I can just imag- 
ine his stately manners when he tells a fellow he wants 
work. I think I might find it immensely funny if it was 
some other fellow’s uncle. When do they expect to 
come on ? ” 

“ * As soon as they can convert what little they can 
call their own into ready cash,’ he writes.” 

“ Does Maggie know? ” 

“ No ; and it is about her I wanted to talk with you. 
She is a good, sweet girl.” 

“ Meg is a jewel,” said Tom, concisely, as he pulled 
the knot of his four-in-hand to a fine point of precision. 

“ If she were not already a sort of a sister, I would 
have given her a chance to promise to be one long 
ago.” 

And then with his hand in his trousers pockets, he 
cut a double pigeon-wing, bringing his heels close to- 
gether with military precision at the end. There was 
no special call for this physical outbreak other than « 
the superabundant vitality which discarded all conven- 
tions. 


44 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Are your morning toilets always made in this 
tumultuous fashion ? ” 

Tom showed all his splendid white teeth. 

“ I generally celebrate their completion with a dance 
of exultation. Have you ever stopped to reflect upon 
the enormous amount of labor, judgment, and skill in- 
volved in making a decent appearance every day of the 
year for twenty-five years ? A quarter of a century I 
have already devoted to it. This morning, however, 
you have had a tonic effect upon me. Hence these 
antics.” 

“ But about Margaret, Tom ? ” 

“ What about Margaret, mother? ” 

“ I am quite sure if she knew how upset they all are 
at home she would refuse to go to the Websters.” 

“ But how do you know she don’t know? ” 

“ Because your Aunt Mildred sent a message in your 
Uncle Ethbert’s letter especially requesting that Mar- 
garet’s pleasure should not be marred until she wrote 
to her herself. And I know that has not been done 
yet. I do believe this is the first time the child ever had 
what could be called a real ‘ pleasure trip ’ and I espe- 
cially want her to go to this affair at the Websters.” 

“ Why, mother ? ” 

Tom was looking at her very directly, with a pair of 
the clearest, honestest eyes in the world. Such eyes as 
always go along with clean living and clean thinking. 
Just now there was a glint of disapproval in them. 


AN OLD FOGY. 45 

Perhaps it was responsible for a slight note of com- 
bativeness in his mother’s voice. 

“ There is no reason why I should decline to give 
my ‘ Why.’ I should be extremely well pleased if 
Edward Webster should come to the point before 
things go any farther.” 

Tom unclasped his knife and fell to work on his 
polished, well-kept finger-nails. What Kitty irreverently 
called his “ righteous-wrath wrinkles ” puckered the 
flesh between his eyebrows. 

“ By that, I suppose you mean that you hope Ned 
Webster will propose to my cousin Margaret before 
the fact that her father is beggared comes to be public 
property ? ” 

“ Well — yes ; if you choose to put it with such 
brutal frankness. You are dreadfully direct this morn- 
ing, Tom.” 

“ It is not my mother who would council indirect- 
ness, is it ? ” 

He put his arms about her caressingly, and lifted 
her to her feet. 

“ Of course not. There, you young giant. I feel 
as helpless as a baby in your grip. But, Tom, I thought 
you liked Ned Webster.” 

“ I do. I think he is a king among good fellows.” 

“ But you have given me no advice yet.” 

“ About Meg ? ” 

“ And young Webster.” 


4 6 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ I have none to give. I don’t see that we are called 
on to do any wire-pulling mother. Even if there were 
any wires to be pulled. Moreover, I thought, Mrs. 
Burnett, that you reserved your most particular detes- 
tation for women who tried to rope young men in.” 

Mrs. Burnett turned pink up to the roots of her soft 
white bangs. 

“ Oh, that was just horrid, the bare-faced way Mrs. 
Magruder courted you for her ugly Nellie. But Mar- 
garet is not my own child. I really feel as if I ought 
to try to do something for her at this crisis. And — 
Tom — you know Mrs. Webster.” 

“ Something of a vulgarian, I admit. Ambitious for 
Ned to marry money, too.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Burnett, “and with great and ex- 
aggerated ideas of the landed gentry of the South, you 
know, and all that sort of thing. I am quite sure if she 
knew ‘ Burnett Hollow’ had passed into the commis- 
sion merchants’ hands it would materially alter her 
opinion of Margaret’s charms.” 

“ Likely. But, there is nothing for us to do to pre- 
vent that, is there ? ” 

He was looking at his watch. “ Pardon me, mother 
dear, but I am erroneously presumed to be a business 
man of exact office hours. And I should like a cup of 
coffee before crossing the river.” 

With interlocked arms they passed slowly down the 
long, softly-carpeted flight of stairs. A handsome pair : 


AN OLD FOGY. 


47 


the stately lady, so proud of her lusty young athlete ; 
the straight, strong-limbed youth, equally proud of his 
high-bred mother. 

Directly at the foot of the stairway they looked 
through an archway hung with heavy chenille portieres, 
beyond the breakfast-room, with its pleasant, sunny 
outlook, into what was quite a garden for a city house. 

Margaret was there, standing among the tubbed 
oleanders and India-rubber plants not yet removed 
into winter quarters. She was feeding Kitty’s canary 
bird. Tom tapped on the window. She looked up at 
him brightly and came in at once. 

“ I’m awfully hungry, Tom. I thought you never 
would come down. And as I could not feed myself 
I’ve been punishing poor old Dickie.” 

Then Mr. Burnett senior parted the portieres and 
came somewhat ponderously forward, with the morn- 
ing paper in his hand. He had been reading it by the 
library fire of clear cannel-coal, until Tom should come 
down. 

No one ever cared to breakfast without Tom. “ It 
was like drawing down the blinds and shutting out the 
sunshine,” Margaret once declared. 

Mr. George Burnett was five years younger than his 
brother, “ the Colonel.” He looked quite ten years 
older. Doubtless he had lived fifty years longer, if 
pace and not the calendar should decide the matter. 
He was shorter, and, owing to certain gastronomic in- 


AN OLD FOGY. 


48 

dulgences, had seemed to grow even shorter by reason 
of lateral expansion. His waistcoat, ornamented by a 
heavy gold watch-chain, seemed, generally, the first 
thing that came into view. His gray hair was thin. 
He walked slowly and his footsteps were audible a 
long way off. His shoes seemed always to wheeze 
under the weight they had to carry. 

Tom was placing his mother at table when his father 
entered through the portieres. “ Good-morning, sir, I 
wish you would break my mother of her bad habit of 
keeping breakfast waiting for me.” 

“ Who’s famishing ? I’m not, Meg is not, Kitty’s 
not down. Sit down, Tom, sit down, and stop hum- 
bugging. You are brimful of apologies every morn- 
ing. By the way, Tom, I see Smith and Underhill have 
made an assignment. I did not think it could be 
staved off much longer. They’ve been shaky much 
longer than the general public were aware of. I’m not 
often taken in by appearance, and the last time I saw 
Judson I said to him, ‘If you’ve got anything in 
Smith and Underhill’s I advise you to look after it.’ 
He pooh-poohed me then. I wonder how he feels this 
morning? ” 

And Mr. Burnett chuckled comfortably, not at the 
disaster which had overtaken Smith and Underhill, 
but at the fresh evidence it gave of his own superior 
prescience. 

And while Tom was mastering the details of the 


AN OLD FOGY. 


49 


failure, between gulps of very hot coffee, Mr. Burnett 
gave Margaret the benefit of his garnered wisdom and 
sonorous voice. 

“ Well, Meg, you haven’t found your Yankee kin so 
very disagreeable have you ? Might be worse sorts of 
folks in the world ? ” 

“ Oh, Uncle George ! ” 

Tom laughed at her over the edge of his newspaper. 
He was a trifle nervous. His father’s discretion was 
not always to be depended on. 

“ Don’t try to look tragic with a mouthful of 
buttered muffin, Margaret. It won’t work.” 

Mr. Burnett senior returned to the charge ponder- 
ously. 

“ How would it do for us to send for the old folks 
to come up here and live ? So that you need never 
have to go back to Burnett’s Hollow ? ” 

Margaret laughed this absurd suggestion to scorn. 

“ You mean send for papa, and mamma, and Stanford, 
and Ollie ? ” 

“ Yes, all of them.” 

“ Why, it would be much easier to transplant two of 
the big old live-oaks in the front yard at home. You 
know an oak can’t be transplanted after it is grown ; 
no more could papa. You don’t know what a dear 
fixed old fogy he is.” 

“ But if ” 

“ Where are the girls?” Tom asked, coughing so 

4 


50 


AN OLD FOGY. 


violently that Mr. Burnett looked at him in some 
natural alarm. 

“ I say, my boy, if you let that get fastened on you 
it will go hard with you. When I was your age I 
never knew what it was to hack in any such fashion 
as that. But men haven’t much stamina now.” 

The fresh young face behind the newspaper did not 
betray any alarm. Tom’s pantomime, however, was 
so intelligent that Mr. Burnett was made to un- 
derstand he must select another topic of conversa- 
tion. 

“ Sure enough, where are the girls ? ” he asked, 
arousing himself to the fact that the family circle was 
incomplete. 

There were two more to come. Miss Burnett and 
Kitty. Margaret undertook to account for them. 

“ Cousin Agnes went to take a turn in the park, and 
Kitty would not get up when I called her. She said 
if we were going to the Websters to-night she must 
have an extra hour’s sleep this morning.” 

“ Kitty was never known to be without good and 
sufficient reasons why she should not get up,” said 
Toni. “ So you are all going to that confounded 
crush, are you ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, indeed. Why we would not miss it for 
worlds. Haven’t you heard, Tom?” Margaret’s eyes 
blazed with excitement. 

“Haven’t I heard what?” Tom asked. He was 


AN* OLD FOGY. 5 1 

thinking that Ned Webster would do a good thing in 
winning Meg. 

“ Why, there is to be a live lord or two, an African 
explorer, a foreign musician, and several ladies and 
gentlemen who have done something great or expect 
to do something of some sort, I forget which. You 
are going, Tom? ” 

“ My mother says that I am, and I always do as my 
mother bids me.” 

“ Good little boy. Then, mother, please tell him to 
bring me some American beauties, and Meg some 
white carnations for to-night ; if he doesn’t we will 
be quite flowerless, I am sure. Any breakfast 
left ? ” 

And with a flutter of ribbons and rustle of draperies, 
Kitty settled herself in one of the vacant chairs. 
“Where is Agnes? Not back yet? Her energy in 
the morning is positively appalling.” 

“ There she is now, I guess,” said Mrs. Burnett as 
the front door opened and closed with the decorous 
softness of a well conducted patrician portal. 

Kitty tilted her nose at an acute angle : “ And I 
smell flowers, roses and heliotrope and — oh, Agnes, 
where did you buy them ? ” 

“ Buy them, indeed ! Catch me at any such reckless- 
ness. I found a boy in brass buttons staring up at 
the number over our door, and I relieved him of this. 
That is all I have to do with it excepting this : ” 


52 


AN OLD FOGY. 


She placed the basket with its fragrant burden before 
Margaret. 

“Ned Webster, of course,” said Kitty. “You 
needn’t trouble to look for the card, Meg. Well, papa, 
so long as I can’t get roses and heliotrope — some steak, 
please.” 

While Mrs. Burnett glanced significantly at Tom 
with eyes which seemed to say, 

“ Perhaps, after all, no wire-pulling will be necessary.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


53 


CHAPTER V. 

That same sunless morning Mr. Edward Webster 
paused outside the door of his Madison Avenue home 
to make sure of the top-button on his overcoat. 

The gray sky overhead held possibilities of snow or 
rain, and he never went at loose ends. 

Standing there he saw, apparently striding directly 
towards him, a young woman with purpose in her eye 
and in her gait. She walked briskly, as one who 
placed a commercial value on every moment. And 
she regarded him critically, as if her eyes were trained 
to do special duty. 

He observed, that, obtruding from an outside pocket 
of her big-buttoned, double-breasted mannish coat, 
was a memorandum book, with red edges to its leaves. 

She observed that the young fellow buttoning his 
overcoat with the deliberation of a man who does not 
need to bolt for his business place, was clean shaven 
and well groomed, with, perhaps, “ about an even 
allowance of head and heart.” 

He noticed, with passing commiseration, that she 
wore brown cashmere gloves, an article of hand-wear 
which he held in particular detestation. 


54 


AN OLD FOGY. 


She noticed that the mahogany-colored kid gloves 
he was drawing on were of fine quality, seamed with 
black. 

Putting all doubts as to her destination to flight, 
she ran nimbly up the steps. 

If she did wear cashmere gloves she was a woman, 
and Mr. Webster’s hat came off with prompt cour- 
tesy. 

They were within speaking distance now, and she 
had no time to waste on preliminaries : 

“ Mrs. Rutherford B. Webster ? ” 

“ That is my mother’s name.” 

“ At home, I suppose? ” 

“ At home. But not to visitors. I imagine she is 
particularly occupied this morning.” 

“ I know. Big thing to-night. But I guess she will 
see me. Particular business.” 

There was nothing for it but to admit her, which he 
did with his own latch-key, and, having let her in, he 
rang for a servant to announce her to his mother. 
Here his responsibility in the matter seemed to end, 
and he once more put himself on the outside of the 
front door. He had reached Broadway in his cross- 
town pursuit of a car, when he stopped and snapped 
his gloved fingers : 

“ By Jove ! I’ll lay a wager she is one of those infern 
— beg her pardon — brassy society reporters ! If I’d 
had my wits about me I never would have let her in. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


55 


Thought she was a sewing-girl come to see that Mrs. 
W.’s reception rig was all right. Half a mind to turn 
back.” 

But the other half of his mind decided him to go 
forward, especially as he had some commissions from 
his mother to the florist that called for dispatch. 

So he hailed the cable-car that was spinning towards 
him with a mighty clangor of gongs, and swung 
himself skilfully on to its rear platform, content to 
obtain a precarious foothold among the other barnacles 
clinging to its exterior. 

“ He would telephone a caution back to his mother 
as soon as he reached his office. Much mischief could 
not be done before that time.” 

And while he was thus adjusting matters with his 
conscience, the girl he’d left behind him was compos- 
edly drawing off her objectionable cashmere gloves ; 
looking to the points of her pencils, and rapidly inven- 
torying the handsome drawing-room equipments, with 
her experienced eye. 

She glanced around as the subdued light was still 
further obstructed by an opaque body. A decidedly 
portly lady was standing in the open doorway. She 
wore a crimson house wrapper of comfortable cut, and 
her hair was done up in a multitude of hair-crimpers, 
which bristled aggressively through the meshes of a 
“ fascinator ” she had drawn over them hastily. 

At that moment her countenance wore its sternest 


56 


AN OLD FOGY. 


aspect. Her heavy brows were puckered into a dis- 
tinct frown. 

Edward had sent her word that a lady wanted to see 
her, and this was plainly not a lady. It was a — a — 
person. 

The person moistened the tip of her pencil with the 
tip of her little red tongue and smiled encouragement 
on the frowning lady. 

“ Mrs. R. B. Webster, I presume. In for a big thing 
to-night, I believe. I want to get a scoop on the 
morning-papers and have you in this evening’s ‘ Whoop- 
emup.’ I’m society reporter for the ‘ Daily Afternoon 
Whoopemup.’ And if I do say it, there isn’t an S. 
R. in the city that can do you justice in the style I 
will.” 

Mrs. Webster put a heavily jeweled hand under her 
third chin, with a perplexed look. 

“ What is an S. R ? ” 

“ Society Reporter.” 

“ Oh, yes. I thought it meant some sort of relief 
association. You know people seem to be going in for 
relieving everything and everybody nowadays.” 

“ Only relief don’t always relieve. But now, about 
your reception. I’m sure you don’t want to be over- 
run with those horrid male reporters. Not a grain of 
modesty among them all.” 

“ Oh, yes ; oh, no, I mean. Well, really, Miss ” 

“ Gettahed is my name, ‘ early bird,’ they call me at 


AN OLD FOGY. 


57 


the office. That means, if there’s any worms to be 
had, I’m going to scoop them in. Not meaning, at all, 
that you’re a worm, you know, if the preachers do call 
you so, every Sunday.” And the S. R. laughed in the 
jolliest sort of way. 

Mrs. Webster was quite taken aback by it. It 
sounded frightfully familiar. But she supposed all 
reporters were like that. And, then, she should like to 
see her affair nicely done in print. It was about all 
the comfort she was likely to get out of the thing, 
personally. On the other hand there was a certain 
cold inexorableness in type that frightened her. Her 
nerves were rapidly getting the better of her, when the 
early bird said glibly : 

“ I wrote up Mrs.Van Slapdashe’s reception last week, 
and she sent for eighty copies of the paper next day.” 

That settled it. Mrs. Webster was not quite sure 
of herself socially. She was only a New Yorker by 
sufferance. Her life-long residence in a small Con- 
necticut town had left something to be desired, which 
neither time nor money seemed to supply, a fact of 
which she was, herself, vaguely aware. 

If, however, Mrs. Van Slapdashe, could lend herself 
to the columns of the “ Whoopemup,” she, Mrs. Web- 
ster, certainly could. “ You see,” she began somewhat 
tremulously, “ this is the first affair I have given since 
Dr. Webster’s death. He died when Edward — that is 
my son — that was Edward who let you in — was only 


AN OLD FOGY. 


58 

twelve years old. That was fourteen years ago. 
Edward is twenty-six years old now. And my friends 
tell me I owe it to Edward to make my house gayer, 
now that he is a young man. Twenty-six to-day. 
This is his birthday reception I am getting up.” 

Miss Gettahed seemed to be covering so much space 
with that swift-gliding pencil of hers, that Mrs. Web- 
ster stopped with a frightened gasp : 

“ My ! I hope you are not writing down every word 
I say, pat ? ” 

“ Oh, dear, no.” 

The early bird flung her a reassuring smile and took 
the lead interrogatively : 

“ Tbelieve Dr. Webster amassed an immense fortune 
in Stamford, Connecticut, by his practise and by the 
sale of his W. W. W. W.— Webster’s Wonderful Wrinkle 
Wash ? ” 

“ Dr. Webster was one of the leading practitioners 
in Stamford,” said Mrs. Webster, ungratefully ignoring 
W. W. W. W. to which she unquestionably owed the 
prominence of her present social pinnacle. 

“And you removed to New York City after his 
death, to put your only child, Mr. Edward Webster — 
handsome fellow he is, too — in the law school of Col- 
umbia College? He is now in the office of Rakes and 
Drakes.” 

“ My ! Exactly. But how in the world did you get 
hold of all that?” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


59 


“ It’s my business.” 

“ What is ? ” 

“To get hold of things. And, now, about to-night, 
please. Many cards out ? ” 

“ Only about three hundred. If everybody comes it 
will be quite a crush. I have had very few regrets yet.” 

“Any Big-bugs coming? ” 

Mrs. Webster bridled majestically. 

u All of my friends and all of my son’s friends are 
the very best people.” 

“ Oh, yes, of course ; lions, I meant. Anybody 
that has done anything? ” 

“ Several. There is Mr. Henry Sandley, the great 
African explorer. And Sir Robert Leighlin from 
London, whose mother’s sister married a descendant of 
Lord Nelson’s. And Lady Bob Bartlett, who wrote 
that lovely little story ‘ The taming of a Brute ’ — they 
say it was her own husband — and — and ” 

“ That’s enough. A regular corker and no mistake.” 

“ I hope so,” said Mrs. Webster, ready, in her grati- 
tude, to accept the prophetess of success and her 
vocabulary without a grimace. 

“ Now, about the small fry. Pretty women, you 
know ? ” 

“ Dear me, scores of them, I suppose.” 

“ Any Knicks ? Knicks first, please.” 

“ Knicks ? ” 

“ Knickerbockers. They always head the list.” 


6o 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Oh, yes, of course. I believe Mrs. Van Dusenslip’s 
grandmother was a Knickerbocker. She’s going to 
help me to receive.” 

“ Fine ! Pretty girls, please.” 

“ I think the very prettiest girl that’s likely to be 
here to-night is Miss Burnett of Louisiana. She is 
visiting the family of her uncle, Mr. George Burnett 
of Brooklyn. He is a banker and a railroad man. It’s 
lovely to hear Miss Burnett talk of her Southern home. 
Oranges, and bananas, and oleanders, and magnolias, 
you know.” 

The early bird was writing so rapidly that she 
had no time to waste on pocket-handkerchiefs. She 
sniffed just then, so vigorously, as to sound quite 
scornful. 

“ Perhaps you would like to see what I am going to 
wear,” said Mrs. Webster affably. 

“ Thanks. I was coming to that.” 

“ I will have to trouble you to walk upstairs.” 

“ No trouble at all. I want to get a general impres- 
. sion of the premises. Band will be hidden in that 
evergreen thicket, I suppose.” 

They were in the large hall now, and the S. R. had 
glimpsed a stand of tall palms and ferns at the rear 
end of it. 

“ Yes. I’m quite pleased with the arrangement. 
My decorater is one of the best in the city.” 

Their progress towards the dressing-room, where 


AN OLD FOGY. 6 1 

Mrs. Webster’s elaborate evening gown still nestled in 
the modiste’s big box, was necessarily slow. 

Mrs. Webster walked slowly and she panted and got 
purple in the face. Moreover, there were paintings on 
the walls and diamonds in velvet caskets, that Miss 
Gettahed had heard about, but wanted to see with her 
own eyes. 

So they had barely achieved the last landing before 
the shrill tinkle of the telephone call challenged atten- 
tion. 

Mrs. Webster sighed ponderously. 

“ That is too much. Why could not it have rung 
before I climbed all them stairs? And Richard gone, 
too. Richard is my butler. ” 

“ Could I serve your purpose ? I don’t mind the 
stairs at all.” 

The telephone twittered persistently. Of course it 
was only some message about the orchids she had told 
Ned to order. 

“ If you would. I’m sure it’s very kind of you. 
The instrument is in the library, back of the dining- 
room.” 

“Oh, I’ll just follow the sound,” said the early bird 
with her jolly little laugh, as she sped down the steps as 
if she really did have wings. 

Mrs. Webster heard her glib : “ Hello ! ” “ Well ? ” 

“ What is it ? ” “ Yes.” “ Oh ! ” “ All right.” 

“ Good-bye.” Then she rang off the connection and 


62 


AN OLD FOGY. 


came swiftly back upstairs, with a comical look on her 
face and her color very much heightened. 

“ I am afraid the steps were too much for you. It’s 
quite flushed you.” 

“ No, ma’am, not at all. I am used to steps.” 

“ It was Edward, I suppose? ” 

“ Yes’m, and he says the orchids will be on hand. 
But you are not to wait luncheon for him. He will 
take his down town.” 

Then they proceeded to the examination of the 
lovely gown which Mrs. Webster had spread out on 
the bed in her room, while Miss Gettahed, with her 
ear to the trumpet, was receiving Ned’s belated warn- 
ing, and his earnest plea that his mother would not let 
that “ cheeky little Philistine ” he had “ unwittingly 
let in, pump her dry.” 

It was only when that young gentleman, spreading 
his dinner napkin across his knees, paused to ask : 

“ Oh, by-the-bye, I say, mother, did my caution reach 
you in time ? ” 

“ Your caution ? ” 

“ I telephoned you as soon as I got to my office. 
But we were blocked about twenty minutes on the 
cable.” 

“ Oh, yes, about the orchids, and about not waiting 
luncheon for you. It was very thoughtful of you, 
dear.” 

“ And about that little nuisance in the big buttons. 


AN OLD FOGY. 63 

It came to me after I left that she might be a re- 
porter.” 

“ She was.” 

“ And so I telephoned you to send her to the devil 
without any compunction if she got to boring into you 
with any of her professional gimlets.” 

“ Edward ! You did not telephone that ? ” 

“ Words to that effect.” 

From a florid ruddiness Mrs. Webster’s complexion 
turned to a ghastly green. 

“ Why? What’s up?” 

His mother glared at him over the soup tureen. 

“ I was upstairs. Richard was gone on an errand. 
The maids are perfect idiots at. the telephone. And 
the young woman offered to answer the call for me. 
She received your message herself.” 

“The devil ! ” 

And thereupon Mr. Edward Webster went off into 
such explosions of laughter that from sea-green his 
mother went lobster-red in her impotent wrath. 

“ I always did declare that telephones were the in- 
vention of the evil one, and now I insist upon it.” 

“ I don’t think it is the telephone that has been 
indiscreet on this occasion.” 

“ Oh, as for indiscretion, I did not tell the girl any- 
thing at all. I simply answered a few questions civilly 
put. She knew all about us already. Even about that 
horrid W. W. W. W.” 


6 4 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Webster’s Wonderful Wrinkle Wash has been a 
good thing for us, and I, for one, am' not going to 
decry it,” said Ned gravely. 

“ Oh, my, no. Of course not. I wonder what those 
creatures do when one makes them angry ? ” 

And by the apprehensive look in her eyes, Ned 
knew that his mother had bared her whole soul and 
aired the Webster family record for the benefit of the 
early bird’s “ scoop.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


65 


CHAPTER VI. 

“Tom, dear, I want to walk across the bridge with 
you this morning.” 

And, hatted and cloaked, Margaret appeared sud- 
denly at her cousin’s elbow. 

He looked at her suspiciously. There was a plaintive 
note in her voice, and her eyes were heavy. Nothing 
at all about her to suggest a newly-engaged girl. 

“ What brings you downstairs so early, miss? You 
should have been asleep for at least two hours yet.” 

“ I did not sleep very much last night.” 

“ I should fancy not. Two o’clock when we got 
back from that idiotic crush.” 

“ I don’t think it was idiotic at all. I think it was 
perfectly lovely,” said Meg, tip-tilting her nose com- 
batively, 

“ The point of view is everything,” said Tom laugh- 
ing. He was consciously fending off the more serious 
talk which he knew must come. 

“ Have you had any breakfast ? ” 

“ I took a cup of coffee in bed. I shan’t want any- 
thing more until luncheon. I am just going to walk 
5 


66 


AN OLD FOGY. 


across the bridge with you and back by myself. I love 
to look at the two towns from that great height, and 
watch the boats skimming about in the river so 
busily.” 

“ Oh, the bridge is all right. It’s an institution. 
Well, I’m ready for a start.” 

She had to walk rather briskly to keep pace with 
him. It brought the color into her pale cheeks 
quickly. 

“ Tom, I found some letters on my bureau when I 
got home last night.” 

“ This morning, my child.” 

“ And one of them was from mamma.” 

“ Yes.” 

No one knew better than he that a very bulky letter 
had arrived the evening before bearing the postmark 
of Burnett’s Hollow, for it was he who suggested that 
it should not be delivered to Margaret until after the 
Webster reception. He wished now he had suppressed 
it even longer. 

“ Yes, a long and very sad letter from mamma. 
And to think I was having such a lovely time while 
it was waiting for me over here. Poor papa ! Poor 
mamma! I want to talk to you about them, Tom, 
and about — about — a great many other things. But, 
if you walk so fast, Tom, we will be at the New York 
end of the bridge before I begin.” 

“ Poor little girl. I’ve walked her out of breath 


AN OLD FOGY. 67 

already. I’m a selfish brute. There, how will that 
pace do?” 

“ Nicely.” 

He had dropped into a deliberate slowness which 
soon left them far behind the procession of shop-girls 
with paper luncheon parcels, clerks with leather satchels, 
enterprising shippers who wanted to get ahead of the 
crowds in the stores on the other side, and the count- 
less other types who tread the broad footway of the 
noble bridge to and fro, fro and to, through all the 
daylight hours. 

Meg glanced cautiously around her to see how much 
earth, air and sky she could monopolize before depos- 
iting a mighty secret in their keeping. Then, with 
explosive suddenness : 

“ Tom, Mr. Webster asked me to marry him last 
night.” 

“ I know he did.” 

“ You know he did ? Did he /tell you.” 

“ Not in words. But he went about looking so ex- 
cessively like a mild-mannered sheep, the latter part of 
the evening, I should not have been at all startled to 
hear him say b-a-a ! ” 

Which had the desired effect of making Meg smile 
a little wintry, fleeting smile. 

“And what answer did he get, Coz?” 

“ I said— I said — I would. We are engaged.” 

“ Like the sensible girl that you are. I am truly 


68 


AN OLD FOGY. 


glad of this, Meg. I don’t know where I could find a 
fellow to whom I would more gladly give my dear 
little cousin. He’s one thing straight through. A 
level-headed, honorable fellow.” 

“Yes, I think he is very, very nice. But — let us 
stop here a minute, Tom, and look at the water — I am 
going to get unengaged right off — this very day. 
That is what I want to talk to you about.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Tom, blankly. “ I never suspected you 
of being a trifler.” 

“ I don’t think I am, Tom.” 

“ Didn’t know your own mind until you had searched 
your heart between three and six A. M.” 

“Sneering won’t mend matters for me, Tom. I 
knew my own mind quite well enough to say ‘ yes ’ 
last night with all my heart. But when I said it there 
were other things I did not know.” 

“ Yes?” 

“ I did not know that Burnett’s Hollow had passed 
into the hands of the commission merchants. I did 
not know that father and mother had been in such 
very great trouble since the fire, that they have been 
selling the carriage and horses and cows and furniture — 
everything they could call their own — so as to get the 
money to bring them on to New York. Mother writes 
that Uncle George and Aunt Catherine advise this 
move.” 

“ I knew that much,” said Tom, evasively. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


. 69 

“ And they are coming North just as-soon as Stan 
and Ollie can be brought home, and I can find them a 
house.” 

“Yes, but you know that won’t be treating us right. 
Of course we expected them to come to us, and stay 
over in Brooklyn, until Uncle Bert can catch his 
breath and get his bearings.” 

“ Then everything has been talked over without 
thinking me worthy to be let into the conference.” 

“We thought it best not to spoil your pleasure too 
soon, dear; and then, indeed, Aunt Milly asked us not 
to speak of it until she had written to you herself.” 

“ I suppose it was meant in kindness, but it was a 
great mistake. A grave mistake.” 

“ I don’t exactly see that.” 

“ I do. Do you suppose if I had known what I 
know now, before I went to the Websters, I would 
have let Ned say what he said last night ? ” 

“ I don’t exactly see why not ! ” 

“ When he asked me to marry him he thought I 
was the daughter of one of those old landed proprie- 
tors in the South that people like to pity and patronize 
as if they were uncrowned kings. And Mrs. Webster ! 
Almost every other introduction she gave me last 
night, had a supplement,— ‘ This is my dear young 
Southern friend, whom the mocking-birds sing to sleep 
every night when she is at home on her father’s vast 
estate.’ ” 


70 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Mrs. Webster’s an old frump. It’s hard to fancy 
Ned coming of such stock.” 

‘‘And now you know I’m not.” 

“ Not what ? ” 

“ The daughter of an old landed proprietor.” 

“ Oh ! You are going to repudiate Uncle Bert and 
Ned Webster in one batch ? ” 

“ I am not going to repudiate either of them. I am 
going to deal with both of them honestly and justly. 
I am not going to sneak into any family, Tom.” 

“But it was not Mrs. Webster you promised to 
marry. And Ned’s got none of that blamed foolish- 
ness about him. I bet a quarter he never talked to 
you about ancestral acres, and mocking-birds and 
things.” 

“ No. He’s always done and said just the very right 
thing in the very right place. Dear old Ned.” 

“ Well, then ? ” 

“ But you haven’t seen mother’s letter yet, Tom. 
You don’t know how dreadfully poor we are.” 

“ I don’t think Ned ever expected any money with 
you. He has enough for both.” 

“ I don’t think he’d care to marry the whole Bert- 
Burnett family, Tom, and as matters now stand, who- 
ever took me would have to take them.” 

“ I don’t see it that way. There’s Stan.” 

“ Stan ! Here, let me read you what mother says 
about him. Oh, I forgot. I left the letter with Aunt 


AN OLD FOGY. 7 1 

Kate. Well, I can give you the situation in five 
minutes, as mamma and I both see it. 

“ Poor, dear papa, highly educated, reserved, hon- 
orable to the core, is not young, nor has he been 
trained to scramble for occupation. He will have to 
do it here. But the struggle will be slow, up-hill work 
for him. He may sink under it physically. He is of 
a highly nervous, sensitive organization, and all the 
tenderest ministrations of his wife and children will be 
necessary to counteract the chilling influences of his 
new life. Could I leave him, right on the threshold of 
these new, hard experiences, to become a member of 
the Webster household ? 

“ Mother, is a lady to her finger-tips. Soft- 
voiced, soft-mannered, refined — helpless if you take 
her out of the beaten paths of the domestic environ- 
ment she has been used to all her life. This new life, 
with its severe requirements and its untried methods, 
is going to tax her most severely, in mind and body. 
Would you counsel me to leave her to fight it out as 
best she can, hiding the rough places from father, 
smiling when her heart was breaking, because, poor 
darling, she would fear even the semblance of discour- 
agement. She will need me as I never expected to 
be needed, Tom. 

“ Stanford ! What can be expected of him ? A 
nineteen-year old boy, wilful and spoiled as some only 
sons think they are entitled to be spoiled, and with 


72 


AN OLD FOGY. 


a natural leaning towards the fascinations rather than 
the responsibilities of life. I rather dread New York 
city for Stanford. But he’s a good-hearted boy for 
all that. I think he will need me, too.” 

“ He has another sister.” 

“Yes, and a very sweet one. A gentle dove of a 
girl who stands tremendously in awe of every male 
representative of the Burnett line. Ollie is a girl with 
a decided bump of reverence. If she can’t find her 
heroes ready made, she will manufacture them out of 
the best material at hand. Uncritical, sympathetic, 
given to fads. That’s my dear little Ollie. She is going 
to fall down and worship Agnes, because Agnes goes 
in for things.” 

“ I see you’ve made quite a close study of the tribe 
of Burnetts. But, here we are in New York, and I have 
not found out yet what you are going to do with Ned, 
or to him, or about him.” 

“ You see him every day, don’t you, Tom, dear? ” 

“ About. There is an unwritten law which compels 
us to lunch with each other every day at the Astor.” 

“ He was to have come over this evening. He 
wanted to bring some — a ring. There will be no need 
for a ring now — and I don’t want him to come. Of 
course I shall write to him. But I want to gather my 
ideas first. So, won’t you, Tom — you will not mind 
telling a fib for me, will you?” 

“ On occasion, lying, comes quite easy.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


73 


“ Oh, not a great big one, of course. I thought if 
you would just tell him that your cousin begs he won’t 
call this evening, as she is suffering very much with her 
head ; you know headaches are always good form.” 

“ I think it will be true enough in your case before 
evening, if you don’t go back home and lie down. 
Better take the cars back.” 

“ I am not going back just yet, Tom. I’m glad you 
let me walk with you this morning. I feel better now 
that you agree with me.” 

“ Now that I agree with you — about what? ” 

“About Mr. Webster.” 

Tom clasped the lapels of his overcoat tightly, as if he 
were taking himself into custody, and whistled under 
his breath. 

“ Have I agreed with you, Margaret?” 

“ Yes. I think you have. Put yourself in my place, 
Tom. If you were a girl, would you marry a man and 
make him a present of your entire family ? ” 

“ Well, no, I’m inclined to think I should not.” 

“ And, if you had a family like mine, about to be pre- 
cipitated into a new world full of vexations and be- 
wilderment, would you slip out of it all, individually, 
and leave them to scuffle through it as best they 
could ? ” 

“ Margaret, my dear, if such a thing were permissible 
in public, I should embrace you. You are a sweet, 
sensible girl.” 


74 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Oh ! I am so glad. I mean, to have you agree with 
me.” 

“You and Ned can afford to wait until the clouds 
roll by.” 

“The clouds never roll by for some people, Tom. 
No, I’m not going to bind him in any fashion.” 

“ I don’t think he’s the sort of fellow you can whistle 
back, Meg.” 

“ I shall never want to whistle him back. It is all 
over between us, I tell you, Tom. The reason I selected 
you to talk about him, was because Aunt Emily would 
scold, and I can’t stand much more.” 

Indeed she looked so white and forlorn, that Tom 
thought she had already stood too much. 

“ I think you ought to have waited before discussing 
it even with me, little girl. You’ve had no time to give 
the matter due reflection.” 

“ Oh, yes, I have. I’ve thought of nothing else since 
half-past two o’clock. And I don’t want to go back to 
the house, Tom. I have so much to do.” 

“ So much to do ? ” 

“Yes. Father writes that I will please use all pos- 
sible expedition in securing a house.” 

“ But I say ” 

“ Oh, please, dear cousin, don’t make things difficult 
for me. I am going to see the real estate men this 
morning.” 

Tom twisted his stiff brown mustache angrily. The 


AN OLD FOGY. 


7 5 


women in his branch of the family never took such 
prominent leads. Margaret was really contumacious. 

“ Why can't the house wait ? ” 

“ Because it can't.” 

“ Logical and conclusive.” 

“ I meant it should be.” 

“ What rent does your independent ladyship propose 
to offer?” 

“ Mother writes imperatively that I am not to go 
beyond twenty-five dollars ! ” 

“ A week?” 

“ Oh, dear, no. A month.” 

“ But confound it all, Meg, that shows all that you 
and Uncle Bert know about it. Twenty-five dollars 
a month won't get you a house.” 

Margaret gasped. 

“ It won’t get you anything but a stuffy little flat on 
a nasty street on the East side. And I know father 
won’t hear to his brother going into any such beastly 
hole.” 

“ Uncle George is very good — and very proud. So 
is dear papa. Of the two I imagine father is the more 
obstinate. He says he cannot afford to pay more than 
twenty-five dollars’ rent. And having said that, there 
is no power on earth that can make him go over.” 

“ But you don’t know anything about neighborhoods. 
And we can’t have you compromising the whole family 
by taking a flat in a disreputable street. I insist 


AN OLD FOGY. 


76 

upon your going back home, Meg, and 1 11 look into the 
flat business myself.” 

“ It must necessarily be a flat, must it, Tom? ” 

“ If Uncle Bert sticks to those figures.” 

“ Oh, he will stick to them. And the East side is 
just perfectly horrid, isn’t it, Tom? ” 

“ Some portions of it.” 

“ Oh, poor papa and mamma ! They’ve always had 
so much space to move and breathe in. If we have to 
go into a flat like one Aggie took me into, to see one 
of her widows, they’ll just suffocate to death. Why, 
father couldn’t get through some of the doorways, 
I’m quite sure.” 

“ We must look out for that,” said Tom seriously, 
“ we don’t want the old gentleman stuck, you know, 
at least not on an East side flat.” 

Margaret’s laugh was just a trifle hysterical. 

“ It’s very nice of you, Tom, to want to make me 
laugh ; but things are very serious with us, very 
serious indeed.” 

“ Yes, and the most serious part of it all is that one 
conceited young woman will persist in thinking she 
alone can straighten out the snarl.” 

“ Oh ! I don’t want to be presumptuous. Indeed, I 
don’t. I’ll do just whatever you say.” 

“ Well, then, I say, turn immediately around and go 
back to Columbia Heights. When you reach home 
get into a loose wrapper, darken the room, give strict 


AN OLD FOGY. 77 

orders that you are not to be disturbed until it is time 
to dress for dinner, and go to sleep.” 

“But — Mr. Webster. You will see him, Tom?” 
“ And tell him not to call this evening. Yes, I will 
do that. I don’t think you would know how to treat 
him just now.” 

And with that understanding they parted. 


78 


AN OLD FOGY. 


CHAPTER VII. 

“ Mildred, my dear, what is it that Scripture says 
about putting one’s hand to the plough and then look- 
ing back ? ” 

“ It advises against it on grounds of general inutility, 
and it is rather useless, Ethbert.” 

“ Decidedly futile. It is something we will have to 
guard against severely. I promise you I shall, although 
I can hardly be said to have put my hand to the plough 
yet, can I ? ” 

“ Oh, but you will when you find your plough.” 

“ Y-e-s — when ! ” 

There was so much bitter discouragement condensed 
in those two words, that Mrs. Burnett abruptly laid 
down the armful of Stanford’s underwear, which she 
was trying to locate, to go over to the window, where 
the Colonel was standing, and give him that mute sym- 
pathy which a wife’s close proximity can often convey. 
She slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. 

“ What are you staring at ? ” 

“ A forest of chimney-pots, interspersed with smoke- 
blackened water-tanks, and miles of dingy flapping gar- 
ments which seem never to dry.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 79 

“ Those clothes need blueing,” said Mrs. Burnett 
practically. 

“ I might get the contract to supply the blues, whole- 
sale.” 

“ Do come away. The outlook from this window is 
neither pretty nor cheerful, but we get good air up here, 
and people are not presumed to have much time for 
star-gazing in this great hive.” 

“ Star-gazing ! Stars are at a discount. The moon, 
itself, rises over the house-tops with a sort of shy reluc- 
tance as if she felt herself to be a ridiculous superfluity, 
and so she is to the myriad miserable little ants 
scurrying hitherward and thitherward under the flare 
of electric lights, too much preoccupied with their 
insignificant little plans for the accomplishment of 
mighty nothings to give the glory of the heavens a 
passing thought.” 

“ All of which sounds dreadfully bitter, dear, and not 
particularly to the point, seeing it is just eleven o’clock 
A. M.” 

“ And you were busy, as you always are. Don’t let 
me interrupt your small industries, Mildred ; you seem 
to have found your plough, already.” 

Mrs. Burnett laughed and faced towards the interior: 

“ I have found my poser. How in the wide world I 
am to dispose of Stan respectably is not yet clear.” 

“True. He must sleep somewhere, and as cuddy 
number one is ours, and cuddy number two the girls’, 


8o 


AN OLD FOGY. 


I presume he would object to sleeping on the dining- 
room table or the kitchen dresser ? ” 

“ Most emphatically. I think we will have to go out 
after luncheon to look for one of those remarkable 
combinations that contain a bed and a bureau and a 
washstand and several other articles of furniture all in 
one, and put it up in here ; and after he has learned 
how to work it, the dear boy will be quite snugly 
fixed." 

The Colonel turned slowly on his heel and surveyed 
the small apartment with a curling lip. They had been 
in it now for three weeks. “ Penned ” he called it. 
Margaret declared that the rooms shrank visibly as 
soon as her father’s majestic figure entered them. 

“ Unquestionably, he will be snug." 

Mrs. Burnett’s slow wrath came to the top. “ We 
have done the very best we could for the money, Mr. 
Burnett, and, at least, we have the satisfaction of know- 
ing that there are none but highly respectable people 
under the same roof with us." 

“ As for that, when one has toiled painfully up five 
flights of steep stairs, over very questionable carpeting, 
and closed the door of a sixth-floor flat against the 
herd, one is in a frame of body and mind to be utterly 
indifferent to his possible neighbors. I am quite sure 
if I was told there was a murderer on the first floor, a 
burglar on the second, an ex-cowboy on the fourth, it 
would not ruffle me in the least. I am quite charmed to 


AN OLD FOGY. 


8l 


find such latent adaptability in myself. I never sus- 
pected my own pliability.” 

“ Now you are talking entirely for effect, but, I can 
assure you ” 

The twitter of an electric bell intervened oppor- 
tunely. Mrs. Burnett’s eyes were narrowing. 

“ That is our bell. You know how to unlatch the 
downstairs front door, don’t you, Ethbert ? ” 

“Yes, that is one of the mysteries of New York I 
have solved, I believe.” 

He touched the spring by which the door five 
floors below them was opened, and stood there frown- 
ing. 

“ I sincerely hope that is not my brother George.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Candidly, Mildred, I find him somewhat — oppres- 
sive. There is no other word for it.” 

“ Oh, but we’ve seen so little of him. You must 
make allowances for the years that have passed since 
you parted. Oh, please, don’t go to remarking on all 
his little peculiarities. I am sure he wants to be kind- 
ness itself.” 

“ Little peculiarities ! I should call them large pre- 
tensions. I hate to say it, I hate to think it, but I am 
sorely afraid George Burnett has become purse-proud. 
Bah, the vulgarity of it ! As if the Burnetts had not 
been of importance always.” 

All this time Mr. George Burnett was slowly panting 
6 


82 


AN OLD FOGY. 


his way upward, followed by Mrs. George Burnett, 
whose ascension was marked by a soft rustle of silken 
garments, and a fascinating suggestion of pleasant 
perfumes, regulated by well-bred moderation. 

When the Bert Burnetts had first come to town, 
they took temporary quarters in a Seventeeth Street 
boarding-house, until their flat should receive its meagre 
equipment of cheap furniture. The brothers had met 
several times then, and the Brooklyn Burnetts had in- 
vited the entire “ Southern branch ” to a formal dinner- 
party, at which everybody was presumed to be trans- 
cendency happy over the turn of events which had 
brought all the Burnetts into such close personal range, 
while nobody was at all deceived. 

“ Take your time, my dear fellow. Don’t race up 
those steps so recklessly. One can’t hope to get up 
in the world as rapidly as one goes down.” 

This satirical encouragement was sent by the Colonel, 
from the summit under the colored-glass skylight, 
towards the rotund figure gradually emerging from the 
gloom of the lower halls. It was answered by a breath- 
less grunt. Banker Burnett had no breath to waste 
in repartee at that juncture. The women had kissed 
each other, and the Colonel had relieved his brother of 
his hat and cane before his enpurpled visage began to 
look natural. 

His first articulate utterance was made several mo- 
ments after he had dropped, windless and perspiring, into 


AN OLD FOGY. 83 

the only chair in the room capable of holding him. His 
eyes had been actively in advance of his tongue. 

“ Oh, I say, Bert, but this is simply beastly ! I don’t 
know what Meg and Tom were thinking about ; why, 
you haven’t room here to swing a cat around in.” 

“ Fortunately we left all such impedimenta behind. 
We don’t own a cat. We threw them in for good 
measure when we sold the carriage horses.” 

“ I am glad you can afford to be funny. But you 
must have some place to receive people. My wife and 
I were thinking ” 

“ I imagine,” said the Colonel, with an impetuosity 
of speech quite foreign to him, “ that Margaret and 
Thomas did the very best they could with a rigidly 
exacted limit. I told my daughter I would not pay 
over twenty-five dollars a month. They assured me of 
the respectability of the house and of the neighbor- 
hood.” 

“ Respectable, of course. Tom never would have 
taken it if it had not been. But the standing of the 
family is entitled to some consideration, Ethbert, to 
say nothing of those infernal steps. You will all die 
of heart-disease, sir, before the winter is over. We must 
look for something better.” 

Colonel Ethbert’s lean, military figure presented 
the sharpest possible contrast to his brother’s opulent 
rotundity. His sallow complexion and deep-set gray 
eyes were equally at variance with the banker’s roseate 


AN OLD FOGY. 


84 

tints and twinkling black eyes into whose shallow 
depths some of the glitter of the gold he loved so 
dearly had become imbedded. 

The older brother drew down his waistcoat with 
an impatient jerk. A hot flush had reddened his sallow 
cheeks. 

“As for the steps, I am very sorry you taxed your- 
self to ascend them. So far as the standing of the family 
goes, my branch of it has none, and your branch 
must look out for its own.” 

The banker laughed boisterously. 

“Touchy as ever. A Burnett to the backbone. 
Poor and proud. Bad combinations, Bert, very bad. 
Now, when I left that rotten old plantation, which I 
knew you never could work out of debt, and told you 
so, years ago, I made up my mind I wasn’t going to 
eat crows all the days of my life. But crow is not a 
bad diet for a fellow that knows he’s come down, and 
ain’t quite clear as to how he’s going to get up. 
You are going to have some pretty hard rubs here. 
It’s give and take and no odds asked. But, if you 
are going to stalk about with your best Burnett air on all 
the time, you’re going to be left, and I may as well tell 
you so right now.” 

“ I don’t know that you are called on to tell me any- 
thing at all, sir, until I ask for your advice, which, at 
present, I have not the slightest intention of doing. 
No, sir.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


85 


“ Now, don’t get your back up, Bert, no use in the 
world. I know just exactly how you feel. Raw from 
the crown of your head to the soles of your feet, as 
raw as if you had been peeled by wild Injuns. But, I 
had to pocket my pride, yes, and, by gad, a good bit of 
my conscience, too, sir, before I began to get ahead 
up here, and you will have to do it too, sir.” 

“ Do I understand, George Burnett, or, do my ears 
deceive me, sir, that you are counselling me to become 
dishonest in order to succeed up here ? ” 

“ Dishonest ! No, sir. I’d like any one to point to 
a dishonest act ever committed by me ! But, there is 
a wide difference between dishonesty and that finniken 
scrupulosity you observe over every trifle. ‘ Fastidious- 
ness’ you call it. All I counsel is a dash of unscrupu- 
losity, or, if you don’t like the word, I recommend you 
not to be more nice than wise. You need the world 
a d d sight more than it needs you.” 

The banker occasionally allowed himself some verbal 
latitude when there were no women about. There 
Fad not been during this talk. 

Mrs. Ethbert had taken Mrs. George, without even 
allowing her to sit down, straight into the cuddy next 
to the kitchen. 

She wanted to talk to her sister-in-law about so many 
things. She wanted to ask her advice about that com- 
bination folding-bed for Stanford. And then, per- 
haps Emily could enlighten her as to the mystery of 


86 


AN OLD FOGY. 


the dumb-waiter in the kitchen, which none of the 
family at all understood. 

“You know,” she said, smiling wistfully, “ at home 
there are so many little darkies anxious to stay 
about the house and wait on you, just for their 
keep.” 

“ I suppose you will try to get along with one girl, 
here? Help is very expensive, and not at all satis- 
factory.” 

“ Oh, my girls and I will do it all, all but the laundry 
work ; that I shall give out.” 

“ Oh, no.” 

“ Oh, yes.” 

“ But, my dear Mildred ! ” 

“ My dear Emily ? ” 

“ Why, how would it work at all ? Of course you will 
have callers.” 

“ I think not.” 

“ But your girls will.” 

“ My girls and I have talked the whole business over, 
Emily, and we are not to be moved from the stand we 
have taken.” 

Mrs. George stared at the slender little woman 
gravely. 

“ I cannot approve of the way Margaret is treating 
Ned Webster. Neither does Mr. Burnett, although 
Tom insists upon our respecting her wishes to the 
extent of not giving him her address.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 87 

“Ned — Webster! Who is he? Some friend of 
Margaret’s ? ” 

Mrs. George seized Mrs. Ethbert by both shoulders 
and looked searchingly down into her upturned face. 
She was much the taller woman of the two. 

“You don’t mean to tell me that you have never 
heard of Edward Webster ? ” 

“Never, before you mentioned his name, half a 
moment ago.” 

“ You, did not know, then, that Margaret had engaged 
herself to one of the finest sort of fellows, handsome, 
rich, a rising lawyer, on one night, and wrote him 
word, the next day, she never wanted to see him 
again ? ” 

“ No, I knew nothing of it. But she must have had 
some powerful motive for her conduct. I don’t think 
my Maggie is notional.” 

“ She had — at least she thought she had. It was you, 
and her father, and this,” spreading her gloved hands 
to indicate all the pinching poverty revealed in the 
furnishings of the flat, “ that she could not give up.” 

“ Dear child, I know just how she felt,” said Mrs. 
Ethbert, quietly. “ She could not throw us over at 
such a critical juncture, and she did not mean any man 
should marry the whole family. She must have en- 
gaged herself to him before she heard from me.” 

“Yes. But never to tell you a word about it! My 
girls tell me everything.” 


88 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ She knew it could only distress me.” 

“ Perhaps. Meg is a good girl. She has a great deal 
of character. I doubt if my Agnes or Kitty could 
have shown such heroism,” said Mrs. George with fine 
impartiality. 

“ Oh, our Ollie thinks your Agnes perfect. They 
are out somewhere together this morning. It is very 
good of Agnes to give up so much of her valuable 
time to such a mere child.” 

Mrs. George rose and pulled her wrap close about 
her neck. She was smiling indulgently : “ As for the 
value of Agnes’ time, I don’t know. She has all sorts 
of fads and missions by turn ; just now, I believe, it is 
widows. Let us go back to the men. I am afraid my 
husband will be giving your husband too much advice 
for one sitting.” 

“ Oh, I hope brother George won’t mind the Colonel’s 
little tempers. Poor dear, he has gone through so much 
of late years.” 

The banker’s wife stooped and kissed her sister-in-law 
on the forehead just where three little care lines 
creased it. 

“ Mildred Burnett, you are a dear. You and I are 
going to be very good sisters, I am sure of it. And 
— don’t let Meg know I told you about Ned Webster. 
She might blame Tom, when in reality it was Webster 
himself who came over to our house and raised quite a 
scene, trying to force some of us to give him Meg’s 


AN OLD FOGY. 


89 

address. But as she had bound us all by a solemn oath, 
we had to let the poor boy leave without it. He is 
really quite heart-broken over the affair.” 

Then they were back in the small front parlor that 
overlooked the chimney-pots and the water-tanks, 
where they found the social atmosphere decidedly 
overcast. 

The Colonel turned a furrowed brow towards his 
sister-in-law. 

“ I was just saying to your husband, Mrs. Burnett, 
that he must not expect me to achieve the brilliant 
financial success he has. Such marked ability is not 
often given to two members of the same family. How- 
ever, I feel that my years will tell against me in the 
fierce competitive struggle one must enter into here 
if one proposes going into the rac^at all.” 

Simultaneously the banker addressed himself to his 
sister-in-law, with that blandly patronizing inflection 
of voice which ruffled Mrs. Ethbert’s serenity more 
than she had ever admitted in words. 

“I was just saying to Bert, sister Mildred, that he 
must not expect all New York to climb these infernal 
steps to look for him. He’s got to go out to it. And 
he’s got to hustle round pretty lively if he wants to 
make a go of it. New York isn’t a cherry you can 
swallow at one bite. It’s more like a great rich fruit- 
cake, that you’ve got to cut into carefully with a very 
sharp knife. But it pays for the trouble when you do 


90 


AN OLD FOGY. 


get to the plums. I had to hustle for mine, but I got 
them finally.” 

“ Doubtless,” said the Colonel, with biting irony, 
“ you have secured all the plums apportioned by 
Piovidence to the Burnett family.” 

The banker laughed with unabated good humor. 

“ Crusty again. Come, Emily, let’s be going. Eve 
roughed Bert’s fur the wrong way this morning. Well, 
when are you all coming over to take dinner with us ? ” 

“ When we have some successes to boast of,” said 
the Colonel, holding the portieres back for their egress, 
with unsmiling courtesy. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


91 


CHAPTER VIII. 

“ I CONSIDER my cousin Agnes Burnett the most 
beautiful woman I ever saw, and the best. She is a 
perfect saint, ” said Olivia with a shrill combativeness 
called forth by Stanford’s championship of Kitty. 

“ Oh, we all know your talent for hero-worship. If 
Agnes was to ask you to walk barefoot over red hot 
plough-shares, you would do it.” 

Olivia sank her hand and arm deep down into the 
stocking she was darning, and turned it about contem- 
platively several times before answering. 

“ No, I don’t think I am capable of such heroism. 
But she is. Oh, she did look too lovely to-day. She 
had on that long, tight-fitting coat that makes her form 
divine. And a big black hat with three big feathers. 
You’ve seen it, that hat turned up at the side to 
show the band of emerald velvet with a steel buckle, 
touching her shining black hair just where it sweeps 
away from her temples so gracefully, and she is always 
so perfectly gloved and shod.” 

“ Oh, there’s where the saint comes in.” 

“ Not at all, but even a saint is all the more saintly 
for nice gloves and good shoes.” 


92 


AN OLD FOGY. 


They were sitting on the same side of the square 
wooden table under the central gas-jet in the front 
room. “ Parlor ” or “ drawing-room,” had been ruled 
out. 

More accurately, Stanford was sprawling on the 
hideous little carpet “ recliner,” just near enough to 
meddle with the contents of the work-basket in Olivia’s 
lap 0 

They were good chums, those two youngest mem- 
bers of the Burnett family, and generally gravitated 
into a close proximity. J ust now the proximity proved 
rather irritating to Olivia. 

“ Please let my things alone, Stanford. You have 
gotten my darning ball into a perfect snarl. I believe 
Satan does find work for idle hands to do.” 

“ I reckon I can unsnarl it, then ! ” Which he placidly 
proceeded to do. “ Where did you and St. Agnes go 
to-day?” 

“ I shan’t tell you. She is a saint, and if I thought 
I could ever hope to be half as good as she is, I’d die 
happy.” 

“It would be a pity to leave the world just when 
you had attained perfection, wouldn’t it ? You might 
join the Salvation Army.” 

“ I am thinking of it very seriously. I don’t much 
like the bonnets, though.” 

“ Might get a dispensation from Pope Booth. I 
think you’d look stunning in one.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


93 


“ Aggie took me to see one of her widows to-day. 
Oh, Stan, the squalid misery of that house ! This is 
princely by comparison.” 

Stanford allowed his eyes to rove contemptuously 
over the barren looking sitting-room, then he executed 
an incredulous whistle. 

The Colonel looked at him severely over the edge of 
his paper. 

“ Spare us.” The memory of a well-equipped private 
study at Burnett’s Hollow, into which no intrusive 
chatter ever penetrated, pierced him like a needle- 
prick at the moment. 

Olivia lowered her voice considerately. “ And Agnes 
is going to give me one of her widows.” 

“ What are you going to do with her ? ” 

“Look after her welfare, generally.” 

“ Oh — yes — ah ! ” 

Mrs. Burnett, catching the word “ widow,” with- 
drew her attention from Margaret long enough to 
say, 

“ You are not to take Agnes too seriously, Olivia. 
Her mother says she is given to i fads,’ and just now 
her * fad ’ is widows.” 

“Which I think is very unjust and unkind of Aunt 
Emily.” 

But Margaret had already reclaimed her mother’s 
undivided interest. 

“ Rather a frivolous sort of business, is it not, dear?” 


94 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Nothing is too frivolous to make, mother, that is 
not too frivolous for people to buy.” 

“ And you have promised to take the place? ” 

“ Oh, dear yes. I had to say ‘ yes’ or ‘no’ right off. 
There were dozens of girls ready and anxious to get it. 
I am only afraid that after the Christmas pressure is 
over they won’t want me.” 

“ Perhaps you won’t want them by that time.” Mrs. 
Burnett essayed this feeble bit of comfort with a brave 
smile. She was thinking of Edward Webster. Since 
Emily had told her about him, the dark background 
of the present was vaguely illumined by a golden pos- 
sibility. If only things should adjust themselves so 
that Margaret’s conscience would let her recall him ! 
She looked at the girl furtively, and, doing so, she 
realized, with a sense of surprise, that her daughter was 
very much handsomer than she had been accustomed 
to think her. 

Perhaps it was the invigorating air she had breathed 
since coming North. Perhaps it was a gain of certain 
subtle graces that come only with an intimate knowl- 
edge of high social regulations. She was not prepared 
to say what it was, but, undoubtedly, to the refined 
girlish prettiness that had always been hers, Meg had 
added a touch of high-bred composure that gave her a 
decided air of distinction. 

Perhaps the delicate curves of her lips were a little 
hard-set about the corners, otherwise there was nothing 


AN OLD FOGY. 


95 


to reveal, even to a mother’s loving search, that a fierce 
battle had been fought and won under that calm-seem- 
ing exterior. She looked up quickly at that consolatory 
speech of her mother’s. 

“ Oh, I don’t see how matters are going to mend 
with us so very quickly, unless, Stan — or — father ” 

“ How does this sound, Mildred ? ” The Colonel had 
been cutting little oblong slips out of the Morning 
Herald, ever since the gas had been lighted. They all 
knew what it meant, and, barring an occasional glance 
of tender pity, cast by his wife, in his direction, no one 
had noticed him. 

“ Well, my dear? ” 

“ ‘ Wanted — An elderly man of respectable appear- 
ance. No experience necessary. Good pay, light work. 
Twenty dollars a week made easily by active, energetic 
man. Call after nine at Barclay Street.’ ” 

“ It sounds promising.” 

Mrs. Burnett never made use of wet blankets. She 
would not add positive discouragement to possible 
disappointment. 

The Colonel carefully transferred the slip to his pocket- 
book with a mirthless laugh : “ I presume my appear- 
ance could be called respectable. Have I any cuffs, 
Mildred, not quite so badly frayed ? ” 

“ Father ! ” 

Margaret came quickly to the back of his chair, and 
began smoothing his gray hair with caressing fingers. 


9 6 AN OLD FOGY. 

She dropped her lids so that no one should discover 
how near the tears were. 

“ One luxury left for me,” said the Colonel, putting 
up his hand to pat the one roving so tenderly over his 
thinning locks. 

Stanford threw Olivia’s ball of darning-cotton into 
her basket with emphasis, and discarded the lounging 
position he had maintained all evening on the “ recliner.” 

“ I, say, pop, that’s nothing in the world but a dodge, 
that twenty dollars a week. They’ll want you to work 
on a commission. Sell patent blacking, or — or — feather- 
dusters or some sort of rot like that.” 

“ What do you know about it, sir? ” 

“ I’ve been there.” 

“To this Barclay Street address ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t mean that particular ‘ ad.’ I’ve an- 
swered about a peck of similar ones, though. They’re 
not meant for your sort, father.” 

“ I begin to think nothing is meant for my sort,” 
said the Colonel, closing his eyes wearily. “ I should 
like very much to secure that twenty dollars a week. 
It would make us quite serene on the score of rent. I 
shall look into it at all events.” 

“ I haven’t told you all, yet, because my bird is still 
in the bush, but I think I’ve got a pretty good show 
for getting on a paper,” said Stanford, administering 
his grain of hope impartially. 

“ Newspaper ? ” asked Olivia in awe. 


AN OLD FOGY. 97 

“ Newspaper, of course. You didn’t suppose I 
meant wrapping-paper ? ” 

At which they all laughed amiably. And Olivia 
was conscious of a great increase of respect for her 
chum. 

“ I met a fellow in Tom Burnett’s office who said 
he’d see what he could do for me with the Daily Daz- 
zler people. He has a cousin who boards in the same 
house with one of the reporters on that paper.” 

“ Somewhat circuitous,” said the Colonel senten- 
tiously. 

And seeing the boy’s handsome face cloud under the 
rebuff, Mrs. Burnett made haste to say, 

“ Why, father, I thought we were to go out to-night, 
after dinner, to look for Stanford’s combination folding- 
bed. Emily says they really are the only possible 
things in such cramped quarters.” 

The Colonel had resumed his search of the column 
headed : “ Wanted — Males.” He contracted his 
brows severely without looking up. 

“ ‘ Emily says.’ Revised edition of ‘ my wife and I.’ ” 

“ Don’t bother about me, mother,” said Stanford 
crisply. “ If I get on the D. D. I won’t have time to 
sleep anywhere at all, you know.” 

Olivia looked at him in alarm. “ Not sleep, Stan ! ” 

“ Oh, of course, some, but newspaper fellows have 
got to rough it, I can tell you, until they climb into the 
editor’s chair and get fat salaries.” 

7 


9 8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


From the back of her father’s chair Meg spoke again, 
abstractedly : — 

“ And I can bring material home at night and teach 
Ollie how to make the things. You have so much 
taste, Ollie, I know you can soon learn to make those 
lovely tissue-paper things.” 

“ I am going to be a designer. Wall-papers, and oil- 
cloths. I went with Agnes to-day to the school of ap- 
plied designs. I’m booked for the wall-paper class, 
and then, if I take one of Aggie’s widows off her hands, 
my own hands will be quite full.” 

“ Or this one, wife ? ” 

The Colonel raised his voice above the feminine buzz, 
which, of course, really meant nothing. 

“ ‘ Agents — three to seven dollars daily. Profits sure. 
Experience unnecessary. Exclusive territory. New 
method of selling.’ Eh ? ” 

“ I am afraid all of your methods of selling would be 
new, Ethbert.” 

The Colonel sighed. He had great respect for his 
wife’s opinion. She had effectually quenched his flicker 
of expectation in that direction. 

Stanford was impelled to a second protest. 

“ Oh, I say, pop, don’t you know agents have to just 
hustle? Now you’ve been a gentleman too long to 
turn into a hustler. If I was you I’d let up on the 
scissors. Just give me time to get on my feet, and we 
all will bob up serenely.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


99 


“ I am glad to see you so hopeful,” said the Colonel. 
“You have youth in your favor. Thank God for that 
much.” 

“ Cousin Agnes says ” Olivia got no further. The 

Colonel clutched his temples with a frenzied gesture, 
then folded his hands resignedly. 

“ It strikes me that we have either been remarkably 
discursive this evening, or the family instinct has been 
crushed out of us with exceeding promptness. My 
mind has been absorbed in these miserable newspaper 
slips ; Margaret is full of some schemes of her own ; 
Stanford is visibly dazzled by the remote prospect of 
a reportership, and even our little Olivia has her small 
head full of wall-paper and widows, if I caught it 
accurately.” 

“ Oh, that’s New York,” said Meg with experience in 
her voice ; “ you will have to get used to that, father. 
There is so much for everybody to do and to get inter- 
ested in that the ‘individual dwindles and the world is 
more and more.’ ” 

“Tennyson might have added, ‘and the family be- 
comes obsolete.’ ” 

“ Only it would have spoiled the rhythm,” said Meg 
gayly. Then, more seriously, “ I shall have to take my 
breakfast earlier than the rest of you, mamma.” 

The Colonel turned his eyes on his wife. 

“ I think, my dear, if it were not for the centripetal 
force stored in your well-balanced self, the centrifugal 


100 


AN OLD FOGY. 


power of our rapidly diverging interests would scatter 
this family to the four quarters of heaven. I really do.” 

“ Oh, not so bad as that, father. Why, if ” 

“ May I come in ? ” 

“ It’s Tom,” said Meg joyously, and pulled back the 
portiere in eager welcome. 

“ Yes, it’s Tom. I found the door downstairs on 
the latch and so walked right up.” 

It was like a burst of sunshine let into a dark place, 
and the entire family of “ exiles,” as the Colonel called 
it, watched him with affectionate interest as he rid 
himself of his overcoat, gloves, tall hat, and other gen- 
tlemanly appointments which Stanford eyed with half- 
envious admiration.” 

Secretly, he had taken Tom for a model, and was 
wondering if his possible position in the D. D., would 
admit of such an overcoat and a tall hat. He had 
never had one. If he wasn’t afraid the girls would 
laugh at him he would try Tom’s on then and there. 

“ Oh, cousin Tom, what lovely flowers,” said Olivia 
timidly. Of course they were for some fashionable 
young lady, and she wasn’t quite sure she ought to have 
noticed them. 

“ Yes,” said Tom, crumpling the tissue-paper envelop- 
ing them in his thin hands, and holding aloft a great fra- 
grant mass of pink carnations and white hyacinths, 
“ and I brought them to a very lovely lady.” With 
which he laid them in Mrs. Burnett’s lap. “ I don’t 


AN OLD FOGY. 


IOI 


want Aunt Milly to think she’s left everything sweet 
down yonder at Burnett’s Hollow.” 

“You area dear boy,” said Mrs. Burnett, gathering 
up the flowers quickly, and escaping from the room 
before she watered them with tears. 

“ Well, old chap, I think I’ve got you fixed,” said 
Tom, slapping Stanford on the shoulder when they 
sat side by side on the “ recliner.” 

“ The D. D. ? ” Stanford asked, with eager eyes. 

“ No. Something you’ll like better, or that will suit 
you better in the long run. Come to my office to- 
morrow at nine o’clock and we will talk it over.” 

“ Thank you,” said the boy, with a distinctly crest- 
fallen note in his voice. There would have been some 
glory in being a reporter, and his heart had been quite 
set on it. 

“ I came over early,” said Tom, addressing himself to 
the Colonel, “ to see if I couldn’t induce you to look in 
at the Merchants’ Club, with me. I think you’ll like it, 
Uncle Bert ; staid old fellows who keep up a respectable 
Club House, with reading-rooms and whist tables and 
other mild-flavored dissipations.” 

“And you belong to it? ” Olivia asked, arching her 
brows prettily. 

“ Yes. I’ve taken out a membership in anticipation 
of the time when I shall be a staid old fellow too. 
Will you go, sir ? ” 

The Colonel hesitated. Doubtless it was quite crisp 


102 


AN OLD FOGY. 


and fresh in the outer air. He noticed that Tom’s 
overcoat was quite a heavy one. He did not think he 
could face the Merchants’ Club in his own faded one, bare- 
facedly flaunting its old age into view. On the other 
hand, a jaunt with Tom under the blaze of the electric 
lights would be quite an agreeable change after being 
mewed up in their stuffy, steam-heated flat all day. 
Mildred was always accusing him of being too unre- 
sponsive. 

“ Yes, I think I should like it,” he said with sudden 
resolution. “ I will be with you in a moment.” 

He was gone just long enough to use Meg’s sharpest 
scissors on the frayed edges of his cuffs, and to fold his 
old overcoat over his arm, with its worst points carefully 
turned in, when, with a jaunty assumption of superiority 
to such necessities, he re-entered the front room. 

“ I am at your service, Thomas.” 

“ Sorry I can’t take you girls to the Merchants’ Club 
too, but their heads could not stand so much beauty. 
To-morrow, sharp nine, Stan ! ” 

And, flinging his overcoat over his arm, he hurried 
after his uncle who was already half-way down the first 
flight. 

“ Excuse my unseemly haste,” said the Colonel court- 
eously, as Tom caught up with him, “but my wife 
and the girls are apt to be a little dictatorial about my 
overcoat, and I maintain that one is generally the best 
judge of such matters oneself. In the South we have 


AN OLD FOGY. 


103 


so little use for heavy outdoor wear that one really 
finds an overcoat cumbersome.” 

“ Of course,” said Tom, inconsequently. 

In passing through the narrow front door the knob 
of the lock caught in the arm-hole of the Colonel’s 
carefully-arranged overcoat, revealing its hidden frail- 
ties. Tom could not possibly have seen it, for he had 
stepped quickly forward to open the vestibule door. 

It was decidedly colder in the street than in the 
steam-heated front room up under the roof. The 
Colonel buttoned his Prince Albert close up under his 
chin, and glanced at Tom’s overcoat. 

“ Shan’t I help you on with your overcoat, Thomas ? ” 

Tom laughed carelessly. 

“ Thanks, no, sir. It is not worth while, the distance 
is so slight. The air is just crisp enough to be pleasant. 
This coat of mine was surely made for Greenland’s icy 
mountains.” 

The Colonel suppressed a grim impulse to add — “ And 
mine for India's coral strand,” — for he saw through the 
kindly stratagem clearly. But he would not mar it by 
any bluntness. He was sure now that Tom had seen 
the dilapidated interior of his overcoat. 

“ It was a fine action,” he said to himself, furtively 
glancing at the two contrasting topcoats. I wonder 
if my Stanford would have been capable of doing 
likewise ? ” 

And the old man sighed. 


104 


AN OLD FOGY. 


CHAPTER IX. 

SOME hours later Tom stood pulling off his dog-skin 
gloves in the hall of his own home with a deliberation 
quite unusual with him. 

For the first time in his life he was consciously tak- 
ing stock of his home surroundings. He had been 
born in that house on Columbia Heights, and al- 
though, doubtless, renewals and renovations had taken 
place periodically, the comfort and elegance of it all 
had been so much a matter of course as never to have 
been a matter for thought. 

This evening, however, the carefully regulated tem- 
perature of the hall ; the noiseless luxury of its rich 
rugs ; the soft refinement of its subdued light ; the 
subtle fragrance of hyacinths floating upon its air, all 
struck him with a sense of achieved opulence that was 
oppressive if not a trifle aggressive. 

He could hear the murmur of voices in the library 
back of the parlor, where he was quite sure of finding 
his father and mother waiting up for him, and, per- 
haps, the girls. 

They were all there. Kitty, still gloved and boa’d, 
with her theatre hat lying in her lap. Agnes, curled 


AN OLD FOGY. 


105 


up in luxurious idleness with her high-arched feet 
crossed upon the low brass fender ; Mrs. Burnett, fin- 
gering the leaves of the book she had turned face 
downward on her lap to give Kitty’s voluble synopsis 
of the play undivided attention ; and Mr. Burnett, in 
dressing-gown and slippers, frankly dozing, with the 
evening paper lying across his knees. He had yawned 
his way half through it, stopping to look at his watch 
at frequent intervals, before finally giving up the valiant 
effort to stay awake until Tom got back. He opened 
his eyes drowsily now to ask — 

“ Tom not back yet ? ” 

Tom answered for himself. 

“ Yes, sir, he’s just in. How comfortable all of you 
look.” 

He dropped a kiss on his mother’s forehead, and, 
drawing a chair opposite to Agnes, stretched his long 
legs luxuriously. The open coal fire impressed him with 
a queer consciousness of blessings deserving honorable 
mention. He had never given it a thought before. 

The seriousness stamped on his fine, frank face 
almost amounted to moodiness. It challenged imme- 
diate attention in the family circle because of its 
novelty. 

No one ever felt at liberty to prod Tom with blunt 
questions. N ot even Kitty, who was essentially daring. 
A moment of almost awkward silence followed upon 
his coming. Mr. Burnett broke it interrogatively : — 


io 6 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“Well, my boy ? ” 

“ Well, father.” 

“ Whose pretty daughter have you been beauing 
around to-night ? ” 

“ No one’s. I walked around to the Merchants’ 
Club with Uncle Ethbert and left him there, while I 
went to clinch that matter with Owens and Baker for 
Stan. I wanted to tell Uncle Ethbert all about the 
place before Stan accepted it.” 

“ Oh, yes; well, how did he like it ?” 

“ Well, I had to be honest with him. I had to tell 
him, that, while the place was a good one, association 
with the Owens boys might not be so good. You see 
they are rich boys, playing at work, and Stanford 
might think he could afford to cut as big a swath as 
they do.” 

“True, yes. I’m afraid the boy is something of a 
fop. But, I was not talking about him. How did 
Ethbert like the Merchants’ Club, I mean ? ” 

“ I think he enjoyed it, after he got there.” 

“ He could not very well enjoy it before he got there, 
Tom dear,” Agnes drawled from the depths of her 
easy-chair. 

“ No, of course. I didn’t mean to be so obscure. 
Frankly, then, I think he was uncomfortably cold on 
the streets.” 

“ He does look rather thin-blooded,” said Mrs. Bur- 
nett, reflectively. “ He ought to wrap up well when 


AN OLD FOGY. 107 

he goes out. I suppose he is not in the habit of think- 
ing much about the thermometer.” 

With a sense of treachery to the proud old Roman 
he had just left, Tom said bluntly : 

“ In point of fact, mother, his overcoat is one that 
your footman would repudiate with scorn. The dilapi- 
dation of its interior haunts me.” 

Mr. Burnett sat bolt upright, with a very red face. 

“ No overcoat! Scandalous! What is Ethbert 
thinking about ? ” 

“ Of getting work, chiefly, I imagine.” 

“ But who is going to give work to a tatterde- 
malion? ” 

“ Not quite that, father, my uncle looked every inch 
a nobleman, with his old overcoat cautiously folded 
over his arm, and his head well up in the air. He 
does not even know that I have discovered the decrep- 
itude of that coat, which I did entirely by accident.” 

“ But he must have a new one.” 

“ I don’t suppose he can afford it.” 

“ I will send him one to-morrow.” 

“ I think I would not, Mr. Burnett. Overcoats are 
not meant to produce coolness, but that one would, I 
am sure,” said Mrs. Burnett conclusively. 

“ But he owes it to the family, Emily, my branch 
of it, I mean. He owes it to me to make a respectable 
appearance.” 

“ Oh, he will always do that.” 


io8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Yes,” said Tom in warm advocacy, “ mother is 
right. By Jove, when I got back to the Club, he had 
quite a little court about him. He talks well, and when 
he and old Major Wharton discovered that their regi- 
ments had been pitted against each other at Shiloh, 
hanged if I didn’t think he and the Colonel would fall 
on each other’s necks and embrace.” 

“ Bosh ! Rot ! Twaddle ! ” said the banker, ejecting 
his opinion with spiteful energy. 

His own war record was one marked by practical 
common sense, for which he had never felt a qualm of 
regret. Taken prisoner in his first action, exchanged 
on parole, he had found his way into Canada, whence 
he returned to the states in hot and successful pursuit 
of one, Miss Emily Vaughn, whom he had met in the 
Dominion, and whom he married as promptly as circum- 
stances would permit. Miss Vaughn had money. 
Miss Vaughn’s father, in that burst of compassionate 
sympathy for the conquered that often fills the breast 
of a magnanimous conqueror, was rather proud of his 
Southern son-in-law, regarding him in the light of a 
curio, indeed, and was appreciative of him to the extent 
of setting him up in business as teller in his own bank. 

Time, and Mr. George Burnett’s own ability, had done 
the rest. But, practically, “ the war ” was “ bosh,” “ rot,” 
“ twaddle,” to him, and he “ hoped Ethbert was not 
going to make it his staple in conversation. People 
were about tired of it.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


IO9 


“ I don’t think Uncle Bert will ever commit any 
great crime against good form, father. He is a gentle- 
man to the backbone.” 

There was a ring of jealous wrath in his father’s 
answer. 

“ He is a fantastic old fogy, who has himself, and no 
one else, to thank for the strait he is in at this very 
moment.” 

“How is that?” said Agnes, sitting bolt upright, 
with vivid interest. “ It is dreadful to have such 
close relations so frightfully poor, especially when one 
doesn’t know how to help them. Tell us about him, 
father.” 

“ Well,” said Mr. Burnett, who was not without a cer- 
tain reminiscent pride in the glories of ante-bellum 
Southern existence. “ Of course, Bert, sister Cath, and 
I were born with gold spoons in our mouths, and ex- 
pected to eat out of them all our lives. When that 
idiotic war came on and flung slavery sky-high, we be- 
gan to think perhaps our spoons were only gold-plated, 
after all, and time has proven that they were but 
base pewter. Fortunately, sister Catherine was married 
and provided for before the fight was on. Then, I was 
up here, in your mother’s toils, and, when the war 
closed, Bert was left with the old plantation on his 
hands. Father had died just before the beginning 
of the war, and an examination of his papers dis- 
covered to us the fact that Burnett’s Hollow was mort- 


IIO 


AN OLD FOGY. 


gaged to our next-door neighbor, a widower with an 
only child, a little girl, who, by the way, I think the 
old codgers were saving up for me. 

“ This same widower was killed in the war, and the 
girl was carried off to some relatives in Georgia. After 
the war, when everybody thought that commercial 
obligations of all sorts had been wiped out, what does 
Ethbert Burnett do, but begin to root around for that 
mortgage. It never could be found. The girl said 
she had burnt up all the papers she could find when 
leaving home, for fear the Yankees would get them, 
and she supposed the mortgage must have been among 
them. Well — now, there, was a free pass for Burnett’s 
Hollow, and Ethbert’s lawyers advised him to drop the 
matter just where it was, especially as the girl was quite 
well off, and did not need or want any more land. 
But what must our fantastic old fogy do, but re- 
new the mortgage, and load himself and the old planta- 
tion down with a debt which I wrote him from the 
very outset he never would be able to liquidate; and I 
think events have since vindicated my good judgment.” 

Mr. Burnett glanced about him for the looks of ap- 
proval he considered his due. 

Mrs. Burnett was sitting with her eyes shaded from 
the lamplight, gazing fixedly into the fire. She did 
not move when he stopped speaking. She was sorry 
he had put himself on trial before Tom, at that partic- 
ular juncture. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


II 


Tom’s fine eyes had never once deserted the nar- 
rator’s face. It was quite like listening to the story of 
some old invincible hero. Kitty broke the silence 
tentatively. 

“ Wasn’t that rather heroic, papa, to voluntarily as- 
sume such obligations as his father’s honor was com- 
mitted to ? ” 

“ Father’s fiddlesticks. The girl was rich, I tell you.” 

The color deepened in Mrs. George’s cheeks. She 
glanced furtively at Tom. His eyes were ablaze. 

“ I call it fine. I call it superfine. I take off my 
hat to my Uncle Ethbert.” 

“ There’s where Margaret gets it from,” said Agnes, 
reflectively. 

“ Gets what ? Your ‘ it ’ seems to be floating round 
loose, dear.” 

And, laughing nervously, Mrs. Burnett forcibly 
wrenched the conversation into a channel wide enough 
to admit other than those two strongly contrasting 
figures, the Burnett brothers. 

“ Her indomitable resolution,” said Agnes slowly. 
“ She loves Edward Webster dearly, and she knows 
that he loves her dearly, but she threw him over as 
coolly as I would throw away a broken needle.” 

“ And no power on earth can make her break her 
resolution not to see him,” said Kitty excitedly. “ I 
never saw such stubbornness in my life. It quite en- 
rages me. I had so set my heart on that match, too.” 


1 12 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Margaret had been with the Brooklyn Burnetts long 
enough for them to feel quite a proprietary interest in 
her. In fancy Kitty had gone the length of deciding 
what the bride should wear, and who should be 
the bridesmaids, and now to have it all come to 
nothing ! 

Whenever Mrs. Burnett slipped her little silver book- 
marker between the pages of her book, and laid it on 
the top shelf of the low bookcase behind the door, she 
had put a period to the evening’s sociability. She did 
it now. 

But to-night she lingered irresolutely, standing on 
the rug with Tom’s encircling arm about her waist. 

“ That whole family is rather intense,” she said. 
The Bert Burnetts were still in every one’s mind. 
“ And I think if I were you, Agnes, I would not en- 
courage Olivia to take up any of your charitable fads. 
She is young and ardent, and, perhaps, not well bal- 
anced. Remember her inexperience too.” 

Agnes laughed softly, rather a soulless laugh, if a 
young woman so much given to good deeds could do 
anything and leave the soul out of it. 

“ I am afraid Olivia is going to prove a trifle diffi- 
cult. She wants to go in for wall-paper and widows 
simultaneously.” 

“Whatever she goes in for,” said Tom, “it will be 
with her whole soul, and, therefore, Aggie, I think 
mother is right. I would not give her any encourage- 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 1 3 

ment to take up things that she won’t know how to 
put down.” 

“ I never knew a Burnett who could do anything by 
halves,” said Mr. Burnett, with belated family pride. 
“ I say, Thomas, you and your mother must concoct 
some decent plan for getting Bert into an overcoat. I 
don’t think I could manage it, poor old chap ! ” 

“ I don’t think you could, sir,” said Tom, quickly and 
decidedly. 

And then they dispersed in various directions, each 
one carrying to his own luxurious sleeping-room a vague 
sense of discomfort connected with the Bert Burnetts. 

The Brooklyn Burnetts were quite celebrated, lo- 
cally, for their charities. 

When a subscription was taken up in the Bank 
for the employes of the building, as it was every 
Thanksgiving, Mr. George Burnett could be counted 
on for a cool hundred. Whenever repairs were 
needed on the church he called his, or the con- 
gregation thought the pastor ought to have a Euro- 
pean trip, no one was afraid to ask him how much 
they should put him down for. 

He not only gave liberally, he gave cheerfully. 
And, if the Lord loves a cheerful giver because of 
his giving, Banker Burnett had every reason to con- 
sider his calling and election sure. 

Mrs. George Burnett was in a lot of things too. 

Her mail was almost exclusively made up of letters 
8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


1 14 

from other ladies who were in things too, and wanted 
more money for charitable objects of every complexion 
under the canopy. 

Miss Agnes Burnett’s name appeared as a member of 
a foreign missionary society, a Lend-a-Hand Society, 
an association for the elevation of working-girls, and as 
a member of the Widows’ Friendly Aid Association. 

She enjoyed them all intensely, by turns, especially 
the giving part. It really does suffuse a comfortable 
glow through the whole system to give as many five- 
dollar bills as the secretaries of innumerable societies 
see fit to demand, with a benignant sense of ameliorat- 
ing suffering without having to come in direct contact 
with it. 

Poverty in the abstract is appealing; in the concrete 
— repelling. She was glad she could give money for 
others to dispense. She should not have liked to climb 
those steps in Varick Street where she had gone with 
Olivia often, but the silly child had insisted upon see- 
ing it once with her own eyes. No, that Varick Street 
widow was not at all nice, and she had been boiling 
cabbage in her one stuffy little room. It was much 
more agreeable to give money than to have to listen 
to their grievances. There were sure to be boils or 
bunions, or bad colds to be described with grewsome 
satisfaction. Poor people never, by any chance, had 
refined ailments, nor were they ever picturesque in 
their squalor. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


115 

It was very nice, though, to be doing something to 
make them happier. She hoped her heart would never 
grow so callous that she should forget the poor. 

What Tom and Kitty did in the benevolent line was 
not recorded in so many society books. Perhaps it 
was nothing. Be that as it may, five hearts as good as 
the average beat under the banker’s roof on Columbia 
Heights. They really would like to do something for 
the Bert Burnett people, but of one thing they were 
sadly convinced — they did not in the least know how 
to go about it. 

The problem had seemed much simpler when thou- 
sands of miles intervened, and the brothers were writing 
to each other with a frankness that had somehow or 
other congealed into an awkward recognition of the 
fact that all these years they had been slowly but 
surely drifting apart. The point of view was entirely 
changed for both of them. 

There is nothing more difficult or more uncertain 
than an attempt to weld broken family ties. It is not 
the finest porcelain we can easiest mend. And yet, 
from the goodness of her heart, Mrs. George Burnett 
set about attempting if. 

One of her maternal practices was to peep into 
Tom’s bedroom on the way to her own to see that 
the maids never overlooked him in the distribution of 
towels. She tarried in his pleasant den longer than 
usual to-night, standing before his fireplace with her 


n6 


AN OLD FOGY, 


hands hanging loosely folded before her. The flames 
danced among the jewels on her hands. 

“ Tom,” she said abruptly, “ I am very sorry for 
these people, but I don’t think Colonel Burnett is 
quite just to his brother. He makes no allowance 
whatever for the inevitable changes that time, and 
living a very active, busy life among people who have 
not the time to be salaaming always, have produced. 
I am sure no one can doubt your father’s goodness of 
heart.” 

She lifted her head slowly and looked at Tom. He 
was winding his watch for the night. He saw through 
the tender little ruse. She did not mean he should sit 
in judgment on his father if she could help it. And 
yet, it was she who had educated him up to the high 
moral ideals which his uncle Ethbert filled — and — his 
father did not. 

“ Mother mine,” he said, inconsequently, “ I do not 
intend you shall worry yourself gray over the Bert 
Burnetts. Leave them to me.” 

With a mortified conviction that her vindication had 
fallen flat, she left him. 


AN OLD FOGY, 


ii 7 


CHAPTER X. 

Said Mrs. Webster to her son, looking at him 
sharply across the dinner-table : 

“ Edward, what has become of that pretty girl ? ” 

They had reached the dessert stage of dining. The 
serving-man had withdrawn, and there were no ears but 
their own two pairs to intercept the confidences which 
might easily be exchanged with only a decanter of 
sherry and a dish of nuts between them, suggesting a 
leisurely finale to a good dinner. 

Between question and answer the deliberate cracking 
of several nuts fell audibly. Then the young man 
raised calm eyes to his mother’s face. He had been 
fully conscious of her inquisitorial scrutiny for some 
moments past. 

“ I am afraid Richards is growing careless in his 
purchases, mother. These filberts are just about good 
for nothing. What pretty girl ? I am so fortunate as 
to know a half-dozen exceedingly pretty ones.” 

Mrs. Webster beamed with maternal conceit. “ Oh, 
I know that well enough. And nothing would be 
easier than for you to make your own choice.” 

“ You would make a very conceited cad of me, 


1 1 8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


mother dear, if I gave much weight to your opinion on 
that subject.” 

“ Oh, I know that my opinion does not carry much 
weight with you on that, or any other subject.” 

He looked at her in grave surprise. She flushed 
and laughed nervously. She could not explain to 
him, that his palpable avoidance of Margaret Burnett’s 
name had irritated her beyond reason. 

“ I really don’t see how I have deserved such 
severity, mother.” 

“You have not, my dear. I am a touchy old simple- 
ton ; but, Edward, you know how my heart is set upon 
seeing you make a good match. I believe in men 
marrying early. And you know it isn’t really as if 
you had to make sure of a living before you could ask 
a girl to marry you. You have plenty of money, and 
that was the reason why I was kind to her, because 
she really was quite aristocratic looking, though I sup- 
pose she was poor like all the rest of those people. It 
keeps them out of a great deal of mischief ; not that I 
suppose you are any more viciously inclined, Edward, 
than other young men of wealth and social posi- 
tion.” 

This remarkable bit of special pleading was too 
much for Edward. He flung his handsome head back 
and roared. 

“ I really did not know I was being especially funny,” 
Mrs. Webster bridled. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


II 9 

“Yes, it is rather funny, to see how anxious you are 
to get rid of your only encumbrance. But I beg par- 
don for such an outbreak.” 

“ Encumbrance ! Edward ! That is positively cruel. 
And, as for your laughing, I don’t mind it in the least. 
You look so much like your dear father when you 
laugh heartily. But you don’t, half as often as I would 
like to see you. You are growing serious entirely too 
young in life. He was a hearty laugher and a hearty 
eater. Indeed, he was what you might call a hearty 
man in every respect. And I am sure he would quite 
agree with me in wanting to see you married early. 
Of course there is no question of my giving you up. 
It would simply be taking a daughter to be a living, 
loving comfort to me. And those two great big rooms 
on the second floor so beautifully furnished and empty. 
And that is what I told her this morning.” 

His heart was beating furiously. A bright, eager 
light illuminated his face. Had his mother succeeded 
where he had failed, and found Margaret Burnett? 
And had she been pleading his cause for him, with his 
obdurate love — “ his own peerless one” — as he called 
her in his loyal heart. 

“ Told who, mother ? ” 

“ Mamie Wayne.” 

His eyes flashed like blue steel. His voice 
hardened into positive iciness : “ Am I to understand 
that you told Miss Wayne, that you had two rooms in 


120 


AN OLD FOGY. 


this house, and a son that you would like to put at her 
disposal ? ” 

“ Don’t be absurd, Edward, and, what’s more, don’t 
accuse me of being. Mamie and I were out shopping 
this morning. She knows just exactly where to go for 
everything. She has to. Judge Wayne has such a 
large family and nothing but his profession. She says 
her father never gets done singing your praises. Son, 
I don’t think it at all improbable he will take you into 
partnership another year. Do you ? ” 

“ Do I what, mother? ” 

He looked up at her absently. His mind had 
travelled a long distance from her prattle since he had 
discovered that she had not found Margaret. 

“ Upon my word ! You are an attentive listener. 
May I ask what you are thinking about ? ” 

“ At that particular moment I was thinking of Miss 
Burnett,” he answered with perfect composure. 

“ Yes ? When did you see her last ?” 

“ On the night of your reception.” 

“ Three months ago to-morrow night. Mamie Wayne 
says it was by far the handsomest thing she has been 
to this winter. And she goes to the very best. The 
Waynes have not any money, but their position is un- 
questionable. Mrs. Wayne was a Van Vleet and 
everybody knows who they were. I think I saw her 
this morning.” 

“ Mrs. Wayne ? ” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


121 


“ Mrs. Wayne has been dead seven years! I was 
talking about Miss Burnett.” 

He fought valiantly for an indifferent demeanor. 

“ Which Miss Burnett ? There are no less than four 
of them, I believe.” 

“ Your — that — Miss Burnett. The girl who loved 
so to talk about the old plantation, and the mocking- 
birds and the magnolias.” 

“Yes, that is the right one. Where did you see 
her?” 

“ Before I answer that question I should like to ask 
you one.” 

“ Well ? ” 

“ Let us go into the library first, so Richard can 
clear off.” 

“ Well ? ” Edward repeated, having rolled his 
mother’s chair near the reading-table in the li- 
brary. 

“ Did you ever ask that girl to marry you, son?” 

“I did.” 

“ And she refused you ? ” 

“No. She accepted me.” 

“Yes? Then?” 

“ She accepted me one evening and the next morn- 
ing broke with me so completely and inexorably that 
I have never seen her since.” 

“ But did she give you no explanation ? ” 

“ None that was at all satisfactory to me. 


122 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ No, of course not. No explanation is ever satis- 
factory to an infatuated man." 

“ Her explanation was, that family exigencies had 
arisen since she accepted me, which sternly precluded 
all thoughts of matrimony for her. And in order to 
emphasize her decision she forbade my coming to see 
her, and pledged her Brooklyn friends to keep her 
address from me.” 

“ But what exigencies could arise between midnight 
and morning? Not that I wish things otherwise than 
they are, for although she was certainly a queenly 
looking creature, I am quite sure Mamie Wayne will 
suit you in every respect much better. She is such a 
wide-awake, up-to-date girl, and has been the head of 
her father’s house ever since her mother’s death ; and 
then you being in her father’s law office, already, seems 
to make everything fit into everything else quite easily 
and naturally. But you have not told me about these 
exigencies.” 

The late Dr. Rutherford B. Webster, he of W. W. 
W. W. fame, used irreverently to say that, in conversa- 
tion, his wife made him think of a tethered animal that 
would graze round and round until it tangled itself up 
at the starting point, when it would begin all over. 
Dr. Webster was a man who never sacrificed force 
to elegance. 

“ I am indebted to my friend Burnett for all the light 
I have on the subject,” said Edward. “ He says that 


AN OLD FOGY. 


123 


the sudden foreclosure of a mortgage has thrown the 
Southern branch of the family into great distress, and 
that his cousin thinks her first duty is to her father at 
this juncture.” 

“ Well, that is creditable as far as it goes; but, to 
fling you off in that cold-blooded fashion ! I am glad 
she did it and I am glad I did what I did to-day.” 

“ Somewhat enigmatical,” said Edward, as she seemed 
to wait for an answer. Then he went on hurriedly, 
“ I have had it on my mind, mother, all this time, that 
I would tell you this, some time or other, and I am 
glad it’s over. But, should you accidentally meet Miss 
Burnett in your social rounds, I hope you will treat her 
as if you knew nothing at all about this episode of 
ours.” 

“ I don’t think I am at all likely to meet her socially. 
She has gone into business.” 

“ Business ! ” 

“ Yes. And I must say, if I were the Brooklyn 
Burnetts I should not fancy having my friends stumble 
upon a member of my family selling paper things in a 
Fifth Avenue shop. She might be a little more secre- 
tive about it.” 

“ I can’t imagine Miss Burnett being secretive about 
anything. I hope you were pleasant to her, mother.” 

Mrs. Webster twirled the pearl-handle of her feather 
fire screen nervously. The heat of the room, or, some- 
thing else, made her very red in the face at that moment. 


I 24 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ No, I can’t say that I was at all pleasant to her. I 
was very much surprised to see her there. In fact I 
could hardly believe it was her. I supposed it was just 
a chance likeness. She had on a big white apron, for all 
the world like a working-girl. Mamie Wayne was with 
me. You know what an enthusiastic creature she is. 
Well, she just went wild over those tissue-paper things, 
said the lamp shades were as handsome as silk. And 
from that we got to talking about lamps and things, as 
two women shopping will, you know. And she was 
laughing and saying if she ever did have a bedroom all 
to herself — I expect they are awfully crowded in that 
little house of the J udge’s, ten, counting old Miss Wayne 
— and it was then I said something about those rooms 
upstairs, and said I hoped before very long you would 
be bringing home a daughter-in-law, no, wife, I mean, 
to help fill this great big house. At which Mamie got 
very rosy and laughed quite merrily — her teeth are 
perfect too — and the girl who was following us about 
to wait on us looked at her queerly, and she had just 
scratched a match to light a lamp under a salmon-pink 
shade to show us how it would look at night, when she 
let the whole thing drop, and the shade caught on fire, 
and we had a lively time for a few moments. When 
everything was put out, another girl was waiting on us, 
and I suppose she didn’t want the shop to get a bad 
name for carelessness, so she said something apologetic 
about that being one of the young ladies from the shade 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 25 

factory, who had just come in to help them through 
the Christmas rush, but was new to the shop.” 

“ My poor little Margaret ! Where is that shop, 
mother ? ” All his soul was in his voice. 

Mrs. Webster flushed with temper. 

“ I think it best not to say, Edward, though I suppose 
you would find no difficulty in locating it. However, 
as Miss Burnett has distinctly desired you should not 
be given her address, I shall respect her very proper 
wishes.” 

“ As you please.” 

An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Ed- 
ward was privileged to smoke in the library, and was 
exercising his privilege from the depths of an easy- 
chair opposite his mother. He was wondering if there 
was any particular place he cared to go to that evening. 
Mrs. Webster’s mind was running in parallel lines. 

“ Have you any engagement for this evening, son ?'” 
she asked almost timidly. 

“ None at all. I am entirely at your disposal.” 

“ Good. Then we will go to see that exhibition of 
painted china at Carnegie Hall. Mamie Wayne wants 
to see it, and I told her to drop in after dinner, and if 
you had no engagement I knew you would be delighted 
to go with us ; or, if you had, she and I could go with- 
out you. I think the Judge likes us to take her about, 
poor child.” 

Edward threw the stump of his cigar into the grate 


126 


AN OLD FOGY. 


with irritable emphasis, and turned a clouded face 
upon his mother. 

“ I have no objections in the world, mother, to escort 
you and Miss Wayne to this exhibit to-night ; but, let 
me put you right at once. It may save a great deal of 
annoyance to us both later on. The only woman I 
have ever loved, I have asked to be my wife. Things 
at present look rather dark in that direction, but I 
shall marry Margaret Burnett, or I shall marry no one.” 

“ Marry a girl out of a tissue-paper shop, Edward 
Webster ! ” 

But Richard’s gentle announcement — “ Miss Wayne ” 
— saved the situation from lapsing into melodrama. 

Miss Wayne was an immensely pretty girl. Of as- 
sured manners, without a tinge of boldness. Always 
with something to say. It didn’t in the least matter 
whether it was worth listening to or not. And, always, 
in spite of financial limitations at home, unobtrusively 
well and becomingly dressed. Edward seemed so 
brightly appreciative of her good points this evening 
that Mrs. Webster administered a little inward con- 
solation to her perturbed spirit. 

“ He thinks he is dreadfully in love with that other 
girl, yet. But Mamie will win in the long run.” 

Miss Wayne’s voice followed Richard’s announce- 
ment glibly : “ Such a funny thing happened to me 
just before I got here! I am quite sure I have met a 
prince in disguise, or, if not a prince, Don Quixote.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


12 / 


She was uncoiling a long feather-boa from her neck 
as she spoke. She was not going to take it off entirely. 
It made a most becoming frame for her pink cheeks 
and flashing black eyes, and she knew just how much 
of the fluffy stuff to leave clustered about her round 
white throat. 

“You know if there is anything appalling it is a 
thaw in this part of the town. I think every crossing 
has been carefully scooped out into little basins to hold 
the slush, and, of course, I forgot my rubbers.” In 
verification of which she laughed gayly and brought 
a very pretty foot into view. “ I am always for- 
getting something. But Aunt Jennie was groaning to- 
night, and I knew that meant I could not go at all if I 
didn’t get away before she declared for neuralgia un- 
equivocally, so I fairly bolted, never once thinking of 
the thaw. Well, I had gotten to an awful looking 
crossing, and was looking at it in despair, when an old 
gentleman, not such a very old one either, straight as 
an arrow, only his hair was gray, came up to cross, too. 
He saw the pucker I was in, and said, ‘ Permit me, 
young lady,’ like a prince wooing a princess, and be- 
fore I knew what he had any idea of doing, he had 
lifted me over that crossing, put me down, and shot 
down a cross-street.” 

“ Quite an adventure,” said Edward ; “ you are sure 
he was an old gentleman ? ” 


128 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ I think I should have screamed,” said Mrs. 
Webster. “ I am quite sure I should, indeed.” 

“ Oh, no you would not if you had seen his face. 
High-bred dignity and purity stamped in every line of 
it. But that isn’t all of my adventure. He stooped, 
just as he put me down, to pull on his rubber, and as 
I tell you, everything he did was at lightning speed ; 
he was out of sight before I had gathered up my 
skirts to proceed, and I found this at my feet. I am 
sure he must have dropped it.” 

She took from a small silken bag on her arm a time- 
worn Russia leather pocket-book, and held it up for 
inspection. 

“ Doesn’t seem to be overly well filled,” said Edward, 
“ but an examination of it may find you some clue to 
your prince, and I can return it to him.” 

“That was just what I was thinking,” said Miss 
Wayne, slipping off the elastic band that surrounded 
the claspless book. “ He did not look like a man 
whose pocket-book would be full. Dear me ! This is 
dreadful! A one-dollar bill, fifty cents in silver, and a 
few nickel pieces ! ” 

“No cards with addresses ? ” 

“ No. Yes. No — I thought this was a card ” — un- 
folding a piece of paper — “ but it is poetry my Don 
Quixote has copied — ” 

“ Laugh and the world laughs with you, 

Weep and you weep alone, 

For this tired old world ” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


129 


“ I think,” said Edward with grave decision, “ that 
we are only concerned with the gentleman’s ad- 
dress.” 

“ Dear me! Snub courteous,” said Miss Wayne, 
laughing gayly. 

She laughed often. As Mrs. Webster had said, 
her teeth were perfect. 

“Well, here are some cards at last. Business cards. 

‘ Ethbert Burnett — with Munsy, Turnbull & Co., sole 
agents for Webster’s Wonderful Wrinkle Wash — 
Barclay Street.’ ” 

Mother and son both started violently. The young 
lady looked up innocently : “ Why, how funny ! 
That’s your very name ! ” 

It was Edward who, having silently returned thanks 
for the clue so miraculously put into his hands, an- 
swered the surprise in Miss Wayne’s voice. 

“ That is the name of a compound to which my 
mother and I owe our present comfortable financial 
standing. I have the profoundest respect for W. W. 
W. W. although I am not yet in a position to vouch 
personally for its merits. It is a proprietary article 
handed down to us by my father. At least it was 
ours. We have disposed of all our rights in it, at a 
handsome figure.” 

The situation was somewhat strained. Something 
must be done to dissipate that look of despair on Mrs. 
Webster’s face, or the consequences might be serious. 

9 


AN OLD FOGY. 


130 

Miss Wayne proved herself a positive genius on the 
occasion. 

“ How delightful ! I wish my father had invented 
something to benefit humanity. And, then, there’s 
so much more in bottles than in books. But poor 
papa was born without any turn for anything.” 

Edward laughed, Mrs. Webster winced, and Miss 
Wayne suggested that if they had any intention of 
seeing those plates, they had better be going. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


131 


CHAPTER XI. 

There was a new-made vacancy against the wall in 
the cramped little sitting-room in the Burnetts’ flat. 
An empty spot in one corner which a good-sized chair 
could readily cover to the improvement of its appear- 
ance. 

Stanford’s trunk had just been removed from the 
spot. The city expressman, who was carrying it down* 
stairs, seemed to make a point of bumping it against 
the wall at every other step. 

The papering in the hallway already bore the scars 
of countless like conflicts. The untidiness of the jagged 
little holes, through which crumbs of plastering were 
forever filtering, had excited unfavorable comment 
from Mrs. Burnett on her first ascent of the steep 
stairs. 

She had heard that bumping sound many times be- 
fore, always with a sense of irritation. This time the 
feeling went deeper, much deeper. 

It was very absurd of her. She told herself so 
vehemently, and — then — burst into tears. Copious, 
unreasonable, motherly tears. That horrible bumping 
sound made her think of a coffin being carried down 


132 


AN OLD FOGY. 


the narrow stairway. And when she placed a chair 
over the spot where the trunk had stood, it was with a 
vague sense of making things look decorous after a 
funeral. 

The question of Stanford’s taking “ rooms in the 
Avenue,” as he somewhat bumptiously called it, had 
been argued over in family council, variously. 

She and the Colonel had talked it over in the privacy 
of their bedroom, with bated voices, so that their con- 
clusions should not be prematurely heard all over the 
little apartment. 

The Colonel was of the impression that the sooner 
the boy got on his own legs the better it would be for 
him and the family, adding, in pathetic climax : 

“ Especially, my dear Mildred, as it grows more 
problematical every day if I shall ever get on mine. 
My conviction grows that the battle is to the young 
and the race to the pushing in this maelstrom.” 

Margaret had offered the most cogent argument for 
the withdrawal of the maternal embargo : 

“ It is only a question of time, mother, when he will 
do it without your consent, so you may as well make 
a virtue of necessity. I should hate to think Stan 
could only be kept out of harm’s way by your personal 
supervision.” 

“ Margaret is right,” the Colonel said conclusively. 
“ Furthermore, the boy can hardly be said to be luxu- 
riously housed here, where he has to await the retire- 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 33 

ment of the entire family before unfolding that com- 
plex mystery called his bed.” 

“ I don’t suppose every young man who has rooms 
on the Avenue is really wicked,” Mrs Burnett had said, 
breaking wistfully in upon the Colonel’s rotund elo- 
quence. “ I am not afraid that Stanford will be car- 
ried away very easily — at least I shall hope not.” 

“ I am not afraid of a Burnett ever forgetting that 
he is a gentleman. Stanford may have his little vani- 
ties — it is almost inseparable from youth and such 
exceedingly good looks as he possesses — but he will 
soon have the nonsense rubbed out of him, by closer 
contact with less partial friends than a mother and 
sisters.” 

And they had all said, “Let him go.” All but 
Olivia, who had argued against it fiercely. And had 
been told by Stanford himself that she “was a selfish 
minx, who never had wanted him to enjoy anything 
she could not share with him.” 

After which Olivia had taken shelter in sullen indif- 
ference, and refused to participate in the family 
councils any further. 

So he had gone. He had come tearing up the steep 
steps, two at a time, during his lunch-hour on that day, 
with the expressman close at his heels. He had kissed 
his mother tumultuously, and assured her she would 
see more of him now than ever before. For of course 
he should spend all his evenings with her, and he had 


134 


AN OLD FOGY. 


left a big bunch of purple violets on Olivia’s bureau as 
a peace-offering. So, now that he was gone, Mrs. Bur- 
nett was sure of several hours all to herself. Olivia 
would not be home from the School of Designs before 
five o’clock, Margaret from the flower factory before 
six, nor the Colonel until probably later. 

The Colonel had gone into “ the patent medicine 
business,” as Mrs. Ethbert had called it in a little note 
to Mrs. George — with that overweening sense of his 
obligations to his employers which led him into a very 
literal acceptance of orders. 

He would have considered himself derelict had he 
intermitted his efforts to dispose of W. W. W. W. 
until nightfall put a stop to all possibility of traffic. 

He was glad that his “ territory ” lay in a part of the 
city where he could not by any chance come across 
any of the Brooklyn Burnetts. It was not a very ex- 
alted business he had taken up, that of pushing a pro- 
prietary article, but it was better than loafing. How- 
ever, he should not have liked his sister-in-law or his 
nieces to have met him with his satchel swung across 
his shoulder, “peddling.” 

Not that he minded it for himself, but for them. 
He had received too many severe blows at the hands 
of Destiny to mind the smaller pricks, and, having 
heroically assumed the duties of city agent for Munsey, 
Mumm and Co., they could depend upon it that the 
Wrinkle Wash was in good hands. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


35 


But the Colonel’s conscience was of that fine, old- 
fashioned sort, that must be satisfied at every point, 
else it would prick him relentlessly. Unless he could 
be assured that Webster’s Wonderful Wrinkle Wash 
would really do all the circulars he was scattering so 
lavishly claimed for it, some other agent must be pro- 
cured to impose it upon the confiding public. He 
would not lend himself, even remotely, to a fraud. 

He climbed the steps towards his flat somewhat 
stiffly an hour or two after Mrs. Burnett had “ cried 
her cry out,” over Stanford’s removal. He hung his 
leather satchel and hat up behind the door, and seated 
himself where he could scrutinize his wife’s face 
searchingly. 

She glanced up at him guiltily. Could he see that 
she had been crying? She hoped not. He looked so 
worn and worried she should not care to increase 
trouble for him. She would make light of the whole 
business, that would be best. So she smiled bravely : 

“ Well, our bird has flown. He was in high feather 
too, over his and young Bowen’s rooms.” 

“Room, more correctly. Young Bowen and he 
have a very comfortable room over a drug-store in 
Fifth Avenue. He will do very well, doubtless,” said 
the Colonel absently. Then more briskly, “ Have you 
finished that bottle, Mildred, my dear?” 

“The bottle! Oh,” and Mrs. Burnett passed one 
of her hands over her cheek, with a faint laugh, “ the 


136 AN OLD FOGY. 

Wrinkle Wash. Yes, I have finished the bottle. 
Don’t my cheeks show for it?” 

“ I am sorry to say they do not. On the contrary, 
the wrinkles show uncommonly distinctly this after- 
noon. I am sorry to be so uncomplimentary.” 

“ It is this strong afternoon glare from that awful 
yellow house across the street.” 

She pulled down the shades hastily. He must not 
accuse her of weeping. The Colonel still regarded her 
anxiously. 

“ But it professes to renew the bloom of youth, to 
lend a velvety softness and a delicate beauty to the 
skin. It also claims to be perfectly pure and entirely 
harmless.” He sighed with discouragement. “ I can 
see no change whatever in your appearance, Mildred. 
And you have emptied one bottle. It has not lent 
you a velvety softness.” 

“ No, I am sorry, Ethbert.” 

“You used it according to directions, I presume?” 

“ Oh, yes. I’m sorry my looks are so disappointing, 
Mr. Burnett.” 

“Your looks are what they have always been, my 
dear, entirely satisfactory to me personally. But this 
is an experiment that we are both interested in. I 
could not possibly continue in a nefarious busi- 
ness.” 

“ Suppose I try one more bottle ! ” Anything to keep 
him from dropping the whole miserable business, 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 37 

which, poor as it was, soothed him with its pretence of 
occupation. She looked at him anxiously. 

“ If you would be so very good, my dear. I owe it to 
the manufacturers to give it a fair trial, and, I owe it, 
equally, to myself, not to impose a worthless article on 
the general public. I am sorry to trouble you again.” 

Then they drifted into talk about “ the children ” 
as they so often did, when they were alone, she sitting 
close enough to the back of his chair to weave her 
thin fingers in and out the gray hair about his temples. 
And the white glare on the yellow house faded into 
soft, neutral tints as the shades of night crept over the 
face of the earth ; and he asked her, as he often did, 
if she remembered how the old sycamore tree by the 
garden gate at home* used to catch the very last glint 
of the sunshine ; and she asked him, if he had written 
to sister Catherine lately, and then they both fell silent 
with hearts too full for further make-believe, and sat 
thus dumbly questioning the future, with their longing 
eyes looking backward, until the door opened softly 
and Margaret stood inside. 

That first dinner with no chair set for Stanford at 
the home-board, was a hard thing to get through with. 
To the Colonel belonged such success as attended it. 
He was ponderously gay, industriously facetious. And 
Mrs. Burnett and Meg, seeing through his generous 
efforts, seconded them vigorously. 

“ I think I will step around and look in on those 


AN OLD FOGY. 


138 

boys,” he said, taking his hat immediately after dinner, 
“so that I can report how your son is fixed, Mrs. 
Burnett. I shan’t be gone more than an hour.” 

Margaret buttoned the old overcoat with loving 
care. 

“ It’s frightfully cold out, father, such nipping sort of 
air. Now, if you take your coat off in Stan’s room 
don’t forget to button it up when you start back again.” 

She followed him to the top of the steps. When 
she came back Olivia had disappeared. 

“ Poor Ollie, she will miss her chum dreadfully for a 
little while. It is hard on you, too, you dearest and 
best of mothers.” 

And coming over to the table, which her mother was 
clearing off, Margaret assumed her share of the drudg- 
ery with a matter-of-course serenity that left no room 
for suspicions that the day just gone had brought a 
fresh thorn with it for the piercing of her tender heart. 

She and her mother, with their work-baskets between 
them, were discussing the practicability of making the 
Colonel a dressing-gown out of a large gray cashmere 
shawl that had seen good service, when the Colonel 
himself reappeared, entering with evident signs of 
perturbation. 

“Well?” said Mrs. Burnett anxiously, “did you 
see him ? ” 

“ Oh, Stanford is all right. Quite right. But I 
have been robbed, basely robbed ! *’ 


AN OLD FOGY. 


139 


“ Robbed ! ” 

The Colonel flung himself into a chair, mopping his 
forehead vigorously. 

“ Yes, robbed, and the humiliating part is that I 
should have allowed myself to be duped — taken in by 
beauty in distress. Balaam’s ass would have shown 
more intelligence. Fortunately the jade will find she 
made a very poor haul — almost a water haul. Only a* 
few cards and about a dollar in cash. No one would 
have suspected her of being that sort, either.” 

“ Well, but, father, we are dying to know just what 
did happen,” said Margaret crisply. 

“ Naturally. Pardon my excitement, daughter. 
You see I had been on the other side of Madison 
Avenue, to see your brother, and was walking quite 
briskly homeward, for, as you said, Margaret, it was 
quite fresh to-night, when I saw a young woman hesitat- 
ing at a crossing. I could see by the street-lamp near 
by that she was daintily shod and had been foolish 
enough to venture out without her over-shoes. I was 
going to take the same crossing, and, seeing her hesitate, 
I did just as I might have done for you, Margaret, or 
Olivia. I said, ‘ Pardon me,’ and, lifted her over the 
crossing and left her. She thanked me so very prettily 
that I was glad to think I had been of the slightest 
service to such a nice sweet girl. But, dear me, it is 
impossible, in such a place as this, to know anything 
about the men and women you meet. Appearances 


140 


AN OLD FOGY. 


are unquestionably most deceitful. I had not gone 
a block before, chancing to feel in my pocket — I carry 
my pocket-book in the outside pocket for the conven- 
ience of getting at the firm’s card — I found I had no 
pocket-book. My pretty maid had picked my pocket 
while I was lifting her over the slush.” 

“ Oh, no,” said Mrs. Burnett, deeply shocked. 

“ Yes, but she did. It was in my pocket five minutes 
before I met her, for I was hesitating as to whether to 
ride home or walk, and had extracted a nickel, and 
then, concluding to walk, had put it back. But” — 
And here the Colonel held one finger up in what 
looked very much like triumph — “ hear the sequel. Of 
course, when I missed my pocket-book I retraced my 
steps rapidly — I had only gotten two blocks away — 
and I caught sight of my pretty miss just as she was 
tripping briskly up a flight of stone steps belonging to 
a handsome house on the avenue.” 

“ But how could you tell it was the same girl ? ” 
“There were .not many women out at that hour, in 
that part of the city, and she wore a huge white bolster- 
like arrangement about her throat. I could not be mis- 
taken. She had been admitted, and the door closed 
upon her by the time I reached the steps. I, too, 
tripped briskly up the steps and read the name on the 
door-plate. That was all I could do this evening.” 

“ What was it? ” 

“Mrs. Rutherford B. Webster.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 141 

Margaret uttered a low cry. Her scissors fell to the 
floor noisily. 

“ Cut yourself, Meg ? ” 

“ No, sir.” 

Then the girl with the white boa who had been in 
the shop that morning with Mrs. Webster was very 
much at home there ! 

“ I don’t see what good reading that door-plate did, 
father,” she said courageously. “ The amount lost is 
too small to make complaint of, and, moreover, the 
young woman whom you saw go into that house could 
not possibly have picked your pocket.” 

“ Why, do you know her? ” 

“No, sir, but I know the house; at least, I know 
who Mrs. Rutherford B. Webster is. They — she has a 
son, Mr. Edward Webster — are people whom the Brook- 
lyn Burnetts visit. Cousin Tom and the son are great 
friends.” 

She was snipping the seams to a basque she was 
making for Olivia with such vigor that her mother’s 
penetrating glance was lost on her. 

“ But this may have been one of the maids?” 

“ Maids don’t go in at the front doors, nor do they 
wear white feather boas about the neck. I am afraid 
you will have to drop the matter of your book, father. 
You cannot care to make us all ridiculous for a dollar 
and a half.” 

“ There may have been a trifle under, or a trifle over, 


142 


AN OLD FOGY. 


a dollar and a half/’ said the Colonel, conscientiously. 
“ But, my daughter, it is not so much the value of the 
pocket-book as it is the principle involved. It is just 
by such willingness to overlook small matters like this 
that a universal disregard for rectitude is engendered.” 

“ Perhaps. But, father, if you undertake to expose 
every little wrong that falls under your observation 
here, you will soon find yourself a lonely Don Quixote 
with plenty of windmills to fight.” 

She laughed nervously, and without waiting for any 
answer, got up hastily and left the room. The trials 
of the day, culminating in this absurd incident, were 
too much even for her well-disciplined soul. Hot tears 
welled up under her eyelids. She would not let them 
fall. What was that girl in the white boa, or Ed- 
ward Webster himself to her? Had she not settled 
everything herself — finally, deliberately, inexorably ? 
What a weakling she was getting to be ! 

She was back in the sitting-room again, composed 
and self-effacing, before the Colonel had found any 
other topic of interest. 

“ And those verses were in it, too, Mildred. I won- 
der if I can recall them from memory ? — 

“ * Laugh, and the world laughs with you ; 

W eep, and you weep alone ; 

For this sad old earth has need of your mirth— 

But has sorrows enough of its own. 

I believe that’s the way the first stanza runs.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


143 


Margaret laughed hysterically. 

“We all seem to be very much in love with gloom 
to-night, and are resolutely sitting down on our ‘ little 
handful of thorns/ as old Jeremy Taylor puts it.” 

Which had the effect of inaugurating a somewhat 
forced era of cheerfulness that was kept up heroically 
until early bedtime. It was a little odd that the 
Knight of La Mancha should have been made to do 
duty twice in one day as prototype for the Colonel, 
with his fine scorn of wrong-doing and his obsolete 
punctilio. 


144 


AN OLD FOGY. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Mrs. Catherine Loyd had a guest on her hands, 
somewhat to her own surprise, very much to that of 
her guest. The arrangement, however, was proving 
mutually satisfactory to an extent which made its con- 
tinuation mutually agreeable. 

The guest was Miss Marcella Winston. “ Spinster” 
would have been written after her name in the olden 
times. And Miss Marcella Winston was the natural 
outcome of the little girl who had torn up the mortgage 
on Burnett’s Hollow. 

November had come again, and the large windows 
of the library, where the books climbed up to the ceil- 
ing, and where Mrs. Catherine Loyd spent such a large 
proportion of her days writing letters and “ keeping up 
with the outside world ” by means of the newspapers — 
framed in half a dozen dismal bits of dripping land- 
scape. The long garden walk, reaching from the back 
steps down to the fence, under the gray-mossed forest 
trees, lay wet and sodden between its trim hedges of 
boxwood ; the evergreen leaves of the camelia bushes 
drooped under the accumulated moisture ; the cows 
huddled in despondent groups under the spreading 


AN OLD FOGY. 


145 


oak trees on the lawn ; the vanity of the two great 
peacocks, that were at once the pride and the terror 
of the poultry-yard, was lost in the damp folds of their 
hanging tails. Over it all hung a sky, gray, dull, un- 
compromising. All the comfort that could be extracted 
from the situation was to be found inside the big win- 
dows that revealed the dismal landscape. Huge sticks 
of ash and hickory crackled and blazed on the old- 
fashioned brass andirons ; a copper tea-kettle swung 
and sung from a tripod, which was the most modern 
furnishing of the room. Mrs. Loyd was watching it, 
with a lacquer-ware tea-caddy in her hand. A table 
with two cups and saucers and a plate of crackers 
stood near by in a complete state of readiness. 

“Tea should always be made instantly after the water 
comes to a boil. Tea-making is an art, and every one 
is not master of it,” she said, oracularly. 

“ Myself, for instance,” said the guest, shifting her 
slippered feet lazily. “ In point of fact, it would puzzle 
me to say what I am good for.” 

“ That is a healthy sign,” said Mrs. Loyd, making 
quick use of her tea-caddy, since the kettle on the 
tripod had begun to send out steam in soft white 
puffs of positive meaning. 

“ Healthy ? ” 

“Yes. It is only when people are quite assured 
that they are of immense importance to the world, 

that they are in great danger. Very great. Now, 
10 


AN OLD FOGY. 


146 

there is a cup of tea that will make you forget all 
about your intense desire to get away from me. Poor 
Mildred used to say it was worth riding all the way 
here from Burnett’s Hollow, to get a cup of my tea.” 

“ Mildred— is ? ” 

“ My brother Ethbert’s wife.” 

Miss Winston stirred her tea reflectively. Mrs. Loyd 
sipped hers luxuriously. She enjoyed her own pre- 
eminence as a tea-maker to the full. She had reached 
that stage of life when creature comforts rank very 
high. 

“ I suppose you have not had time to hear from 
Colonel Burnett yet ? ” 

“ About your occupying the Hollow ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Why, my dear girl, he has nothing whatever to do 
with it. I wrote to him a long letter, pretty much all 
about you. I told him that you had returned here, 
almost Italianized after a fifteen-years’ residence in 
Florence, that your aunt had died over there, leaving 
you entirely alone in the world, and that you fancied 
you would rather live in the old neighborhood than 
anywhere else. I am quite sure you won’t. I also 
told him that, when I heard you were on that planta- 
tion by yourself, I made you come to me for a short 
visit, but that you found me so intensely disagreeable, 
I had great trouble in keeping you until the roads be- 
came passable for wheels, which they certainly are not 


AN OLD FOGY. 


147 


now. Further than that, Ethbert is not interested in 
your movements.” 

“ Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the lady opposite 
her, smiling in a way that lighted up a very serious 
face. “ I fancy I know more than you do about Bur- 
nett’s Hollow. You know I stopped in New Orleans 
quite a while before I came up to the place.” 

“ So you have told me.” 

“ And Mr. Mandeville told me all about it.” 

“ All about what ? ” 

“ Your brother’s heroism.” 

“ I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Loyd, fixing her 
calm gray eyes on her guest inquiringly. 

“ Oh, you don’t. Perhaps then you do not consider 
it heroism for a man to voluntarily burden himself 
with a debt of thousands for the benefit of an ignorant 
girl of thirteen years old, who did not even have sense 
enough to know a mortgage from a pudding re- 
ceipt.” 

A soft smile crept over Mrs. Loyd’s fine face. “ No, 
not heroism, only justice. I was glad Ethbert did 
that. As a gentleman he could not do less.” 

“ Under some circumstances justice becomes heroism. 
I wish I had known all this earlier ; years ago.” 

“ But you were entirely out of it, my dear, when he 
transferred the mortgage from you to his commission 
merchant.” 

“ Yes. Mr. Mandeville told me all about that, too. 


148 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ I suppose my guardian thought it right to protect 
me at every turn. And I have been so well taken care 
of by a lot of honorable men, that here, at the age of 
thirty-six, I find myself with money that I don’t in 
the least know what to do with — poor kinless old maid 
that I am.” 

“ And so you want to sink some of it by buying 
back Burnett’s Hollow? ” 

“ Yes. And I would like to live there. But I 
wanted to find out first — if — if Colonel Burnett would 
have any feeling on the subject.” 

“Any feeling on the subject?” 

“Yes. He might, you know — he might prefer an 
entire stranger.” 

“ My dear Marcella. You and Ethbert ought to 
have lived in the days of King Arthur.” 

“ I suppose you mean by that, I am totally unprac- 
tical.” Miss Winston’s face was clouded. 

“ I mean by that, that both of you are full of a fine 
chivalry that does not belong to the present day, whose 
motto is, get all you can and keep all you have. Per- 
sonally, it would be a source of gratification to have 
you in the old homestead.” 

“ Thank you. It is capable of being made very 
beautiful. My old house is simply hideous by com- 
parison. It is a place without possibilities.” 

The door was opened softly and a hand in a black 
woollen mitten was inserted in the opening. The hand 


AN OLD FOGY. 149 

held a small oil-skin bag. A gentle voice announced 
in a drawl — 

“ Mail, Miss Cath ? ” 

“ A little nearer, Phelps.” 

And a mud-bespattered boy followed the woollen 
mitten shyly into the room. 

“ I were so splashed,” he said, looking at himself 
deprecatingly. 

“ I knew it, and I wanted Miss Winston to see you. 
You see, my dear Marcella, how perfectly useless it is 
to fix dates.” 

For the next half hour nothing but the soft rustling 
of paper was to be heard. A week’s accumulation of 
mail-matter gave both women plenty of reading. 

Mrs. Loyd laid down her last letter with an audible 
sigh. And with folded hands sat gazing into the fire. 

“ It is from Mildred,” she said, glancing up presently, 
and catching,the look of sympathetic interest on the 
face of her guest. “ I have a great mind to read it to 
you, Marcella, if you are quite sure it won’t bore you.” 

“ Oh, no.” 

“ Family letters, as a rule, are awfully stupid to out- 
siders, but somehow you seem to have gotten mixed 
up with Ethbert’s affairs, and there is quite a nice par- 
agraph about you here, too. I might just read you that.” 

“ If you don’t mind, I should like to hear it all,” 
said Miss Winston persuasively. 

And Mrs. Loyd smoothed out the four sheets of 


AN OLD FOGY. 


150 

quadrille paper with an apologetic preface. “ Mildred 
writes well, but, of course this is all about the family. 
It is so easy for even the best of women to dodge the 
truth on paper. They can skirmish all around it, and 
yet allow any one with an ounce of penetration to 
read between the lines. I read a great deal between 
these lines, and they have only been in Sodom eight 
months ! ” 

Yes, there was much to be read between the closely- 
written lines of Mrs. Ethbert’s letter, to : — “ My dear 
sister Catherine.” 

“ ‘ Mr. Burnett has delegated to me the task of an- 
swering your last letter. 

“ * So far from disliking the idea of Burnett’s Hollow 
passing into Miss Winston’s hands, he shares my satis- 
faction in knowing that the dear old house will be oc- 
cupied by a woman of such fine sensibilities. 

“‘You know I have shrunk most unreasonably from 
the horror of having some coarse manager put in it, 
with a wife, perhaps, who would root up my chrysan- 
themums and carnations to make room for carrots and 
cabbages. 

If Miss Winston should happen to move there in 
early spring, I know she will receive a very sweet wel- 
come from my yellow jessamine and sweet-olive. I 
hope she won’t mind the mocking-birds nesting in the 
Solfitaire rose-bush, just outside the dining-room win- 
dow. They have done it for so many years.’ ” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


151 

Mrs. Loyd’s voice grew a little husky just here, and, 
as she stopped reading long enough to moisten her 
throat with a sip of tea, she detected Miss Winston 
furtively applying her handkerchief to her eyes, which 
were shining with suspicious brightness. 

“ ‘ Colonel Burnett would have written a\\ this him- 
self, but he is very busy just now. H,e has: taken some 
sort of .position under the street railroad company, 
which pays him pretty well, but, I am afraid, must be 
rather confining, as he looks quite fagged out when he 
gets home about seven o’clock. I’m not at all clear as 
to what his duties are. 

“ ‘ He gave up the patent medicine business I wrote 
you about, after satisfying himself that the articles 
were not what they professed to be, and you know 
our Ethbert too well to expect him to even indirectly 
propagate a fraud. 

“ ‘ Of course you will want to hear all about the chil- 
dren. I will begin with the youngest. 

“ ‘ Olivia is very proud of having mastered a trade in 
the eight months she has been here. Agnes Burnett 
got her into the School of Designs, where she has 
learned very promptly and prettily. 

“ ‘ The proceeds of all designs sold by the scholars to 
manufacturers goes to the designers, so I think I can 
say our dear girl is on the way to self-support. But 
she is not the light-hearted lassie you knew at Bur- 
nett’s Hollow, dear. 


152 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ ‘ She has never become reconciled to Stanford’s 
living away from us, as — neither have I. And I am 
afraid that playing at doing good which has helped to 
ward off ennui from Agnes Burnett’s empty hours is tak- 
ing a deep hold upon my Olivia’s more intense nature. 
Her favorite reading is the accounts of the misery 
here in the tenement districts, and she avows her inten- 
tion of assuming some sort of duties herself. Think 
of it ! 

“ 1 We laugh at her — but — I also tremble. Noth- 
ing stands still in this maelstrom. One is sucked into 
some sort of activity, good or bad, in spite of oneself. 
If I were not virtually and voluntarily almost a pris- 
oner in my eerie above the house-tops, doubtless you 
would hear of my being in something too. 

“ ‘As for Stanford, you already know that Tom Bur- 
nett procured him a very good position in a wholesale 
house with a salary of seventy-five dollars a month. 

“‘It seemed tome quite munificent; but Stan says 
it goes nowhere among the fellows here. I am quite 
sure it must go somewhere, as he always complains of 
being short ! I am afraid he is very fond of dress. All 
the men, here, young and old, of course, I mean, peo- 
ple of our sort, dress extremely well. Standford grows 
handsomer every day. I wish he did not know it so 
well. 

“ ‘ As for my Margaret. She is — Margaret ! My 
pearl — my blessing — my strong staff. Somewhat 


AN OLD FOGY. 


153 

mixed, Sister Kate — but you will understand that I 
mean she is everything to us, to her father and to 
me. 

“ ‘ But for our extremity she would now be the lov- 
ing and beloved wife of a splendid fellow. I know 
this, but Ethbert does not. You will remember in 
that letter of George’s to his brother — he made allu- 
sion to a “ young fellow from over the bridge ? ” He is 
still our Meg’s devoted lover. 

“ ‘ She applied a severe test to his devotion one day 
last week. She has persistently refused to let him 
know where she was since leaving her uncle’s. He dis- 
covered our address, queerly, through Ethbert’s losing 
his pocket-book, which was carried into his house by 
a young lady. 

‘“He wrote to ask if he might call — and — to my as- 
tonishment, Margaret wrote back that he might. I 
asked her what had made her change her tactics so 
radically, for, in my heart, Sister Catherine, I hoped 
it meant a recall. 

“ 1 She smiled — poor dear, neither is she the round- 
cheeked lassie you remember at Burnett Hollow — and 
said that, when one treatment failed of a cure, the 
wise physician tried another. And “ she was going to 
do likewise. Change the treatment, that was all.” 

Ui He came. And, if awkwardness of situation, em- 
barrassment in conversation, and general dismalness, 
can effect a cure — he went away cured ! Oh, it was all 


154 


AN OLD FOGY. 


just dreadful. He and Margaret seemed to be looking 
at each other from entirely different worlds across a 
gulf of ice. 

“ ‘She often brings home her work, and, that night, 
with her large work-apron on, she turned off tissue-paper 
lilacs and hyacinths as if life held nothing more fasci- 
nating for her. I don’t think she looked straight at 
him three times during that awful visit. Olivia 
chattered to him about City Missions and asked him 
so many questions about the East side, that one really 
would have thought she supposed he had been born 
on Avenue A. Stanford happened in for a few mo- 
ments, dressed for the theatre, but only stayed about 
five minutes. Colonel Burnett, who is always tired 
at night, yawned in the most suggestive manner. And 
altogether it was frightful. 

“ ‘ He did not stay very long — how could he ? I 
detected him secreting a tiny little purple pansy, a real 
one, that had dropped from a bunch Margaret had on 
her bosom, when she had gone into the other room 
to put her work away. That is the only crumb of 
comfort I extracted from the situation. ' She did not 
ask him to come again. He did not ask if he might. 

“‘Margaret stood quite still in the middle of the 
room after he had gone away. Listening, I think, to 
his footsteps, until they died awaydn the lower halls. 
Then she turned to me, with such a wan, tired smile on 
her dear lips. 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 55 

“‘“Well, mother dear, what do you think of my 
change of treatment ? ” 

“ 4 I told her I did not know. 

“ Sure cure,” she said, laughing harshly, and in the 
next moment I heard her chattering away with Olivia 
in their little bedroom, as if nothing at all had hap- 
pened, while I knew she was quivering in every fibre 
of her being with the pain and humiliation of it all. 
My precious, suffering child. 

“ ‘ I have written you so much about the Bert Bur- 
netts, that you will wonder if I have nothing to say 
about the Brooklyn Burnetts. They are very prosper- 
ous, very well, and very happy, I hope. We do not 
see a great deal of each other, but that is entirely our 
fault, not theirs. Ethbert and his brother George 
clash. Ethbert will not look at things from his 
brother’s point of view, and his brother cannot look 
at them from his. So we are each going our own way, 
agreed to disagree. Emily is a grand woman, and 
Thomas is a noble, unselfish boy. A great comfort to 
his uncle and me. How proud a woman must be of 
such a son. 

“ 4 While I am writing the ticking of the clock is the 
only sound in the room. It is the old library clock 
from Burnett’s Hollow. I almost wish I had not 
brought it. Each swing of its pendulum seems to 
whisper a message from out the past. 

“ ‘ I have the whole flat to myself from nine in the 


AN OLD FOGY. 


156 

morning until late in the afternoon. All my dear ones 
are wage-earners ! How strange that sounds. How 
far away from the old tranquil life on the plantation. 
There, I, pottering among my flowers and poultry, 
called myself the busy one of the family. Here I am 
the drone. Nothing to do but to smile when my wage- 
earners come back to me through the lamp-lit streets, 
so that they may not know how many tears I shed when 
I am alone. I have too much time for remembering. 
Our most distinct blessing here is perfect health.’ ” 

Mrs. Loyd folded the many sheets of paper neatly, 
pressing them compactly together before slipping them 
back into the square envelope. No comments were 
made upon its contents. 

“Tell me about the Veglione,” she said with abrupt 
transition. 

Miss Winston laughed nervously. 

“ Of course you attended them,” said Mrs. Loyd, 
sharply. “You need not be afraid of shocking me. I 
should have a very poor opinion of your intelligence 
if you had not.” 

“You know,” Miss Winston admitted, “that the 
company is dreadfully mixed, but one can manage to 
learn a great deal about the local life at such places, 
that cannot possibly be learned elsewhere.” 

“ Of course. Tell me about it.” 

And settling herself into an attitude of receptive 
attention, Mrs. Loyd tactfully led her guest away 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 57 

from the morbid contemplation of the Burnett 
affairs. 

“ With Marcella Winston’s fine-spun theories of 
poetical justice, we will have her next offering to make 
Ethbert a present of Burnett’s Hollow, and then we 
would have some private theatricals,” said Mrs. Loyd 
to herself, when she and her guest separated for the 
formality of dressing for dinner. 


i 5 8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE gas was turned high in the room over the Fifth 
Avenue drug-store, which Stanford shared with his 
friend Bowen. 

His friend Bowen was putting the finishing touches 
to an elaborate evening toilet with the thoughtful solici- 
tude of a man who knows he has a good many natural 
deficiencies to make up for. 

Nature had been an especial niggard to him in the 
matter of hair. Such as he had being unbeautiful in 
color and unsatisfactory in quantity. It was especially 
intractable this evening, and in desperate finale he 
seized two handleless brushes to bring it into subjec- 
tion. Reflected in the glass before him was a tumbled 
mass of waving reddish-brown hair, that shone under 
the gaslight in burnished beauty. 

“ Now, if I only had your pate, Burnett, instead of 
this barb-wire thatch of mine.” 

“You would have a confoundedly useless piece of 
furniture,” said the boy, flinging a book from him, and 
nestling more comfortably among the sofa-cushions. 

“ Oh, externally your head is much to be envied. 
Classic, Byronic, all that sort of thing, you know. But, 
I say, you are not going to sleep ? ” 


59 


AN OLD FOGY. \ 

“ Yes, I am, why not? ” 

“ But aren’t you going to the Islips ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ No?” 

“ No.” 

There was an unusual acerbity in the tones that made 
Bowen square round and look at all he could see of the 
handsome young face. 

“ Why not, Burnett? You were full of it when the 
cards came.” 

“ I have other engagements.” 

“ Since when ?” 

Stanford sprang into a sitting posture, crimsoning 
angrily. 

“Confound it all, Bowen, come down to the shorter 
catechism. I’m not equal to the longer one to-night. 
It seems I’m not out of leading-strings yet.” 

“ As far as I am concerned you have never been in 
them,” said Bowen frigidly. “As the Islips, however, 
invited you to this function because you were my 
friend, I should at least be glad to know you had been 
decent enough to manufacture some regrets.” 

“ That is my affair.” 

“ Unquestionably.” 

And humming an air from Carmen, Bowen proceeded 
with his toilet. His heart was not quite as light as the 
aria he was humming, however. It had been his prop- 
osition that Burnett should go into bachelor quarters 


i6o 


AN OLD FOGY. 


with him. He liked the handsome, dashing young 
Louisianian, and rather enjoyed taking his Southern 
friend to the great houses that had been opened to him 
always, by right of family connection. 

He did not know much about Burnett’s private 
affairs, but, as Tom Burnett, who was “ no end of a 
swell,” had gotten him into the firm, where he himself 
was clerking, in a perfunctory amateurish way, “ to keep 
him out of mischief,” his mother had said when per- 
suading his uncle to take him on — he took it for granted 
Burnett, too, was in position to “ have his little fling ” 
without coming to any special harm. “ D — n it, a fel- 
low wasn’t worth his salt until after he had sowed his 
wild oats ! ” He was five years older than Burnett, 
perhaps he ought to give him a little good advice, even 
at the risk of another snubbing. 

He was not going to constitute himself his brother’s 
keeper, he wasn’t that sort of a muff, but he would 
give Burnett a point or two, which might show him the 
necessity for “ down brakes.” And having now reached 
the gloving stage of his toilet, he had entire leisure for 
carrying his virtuous resolve into execution. 

“ I say, Burnett — now, don’t get on your ear prema- 
turely, I beg of you — I should like to ask you one more 
question before I go out.” 

“ Fire away ! ” came sullenly from among the sofa- 
cushions where Stanford had flung himself down again. 

“ Is your engagement with Gilchrist? ” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


161 


“ And — if I say yes ? ” 

“ I should say that I am very sorry. I think I ought 
to say that much.” 

“ I thought Gilchrist was your friend. You intro- 
duced me to him.” 

“ Somewhat unavoidably, seeing he came up here. 
But I wouldn’t, if I’d known as much about you as I 
do now.” 

“ What in the devil do you know about me now that 
you did not know the first day we met ? ” 

He was on his feet now, and, loosening the neck-scarf 
which seemed to be choking him, he flung it wrathfully 
across the room in the direction of his own bed, in the 
alcove. 

“A great deal,” said Bowen, buttoning his gloves 
composedly. “You are infernally excitable, and lose 
your head at cards about as quickly as possible. But 
— hang it all, I am not your keeper, nor your con- 
science. Since, however, I am responsible for your 
knowing Gilchrist, I want to tell you plainly that he 
is bad all the way through.” 

Stanford’s lip curled bitterly. 

“Thanks. You have acquitted yourself honorably. 
Only — when we call ourselves a man’s friend, down 
our way, we don’t care to black-wash him. Aren’t 
you afraid you will be late at the Islips ? ” 

Generously giving him permission to go to the devil 

his own way, Bowen put the door of the room between 

ii 


AN OLD FOGY. 


162 

them hastily. In the obscurity of the stairway he 
stumbled on a man who was ascending the steps. 

“ I say, do you want the earth ? ” 

Bowen laughed. 

“ Is that you, Gilchrist ? ” 

“ Supposed to be. Where’s pretty boy Burnett ? ” 

“ Upstairs.” 

“ Ta-ta ! ” 

“ Hold on a moment, Gilchrist.” 

“ Well?” 

“ Don’t you think you are playing it rather low 
down ? Burnett is a mere puppet in your hands. 
Can’t you find a foeman worthier of your steel ? ” 

“ Do you mean, I’m ” 

“ Bluster don’t go any distance at all with me, 
Gilchrist, and you know it. You are an old hand at 
this business, and, I suppose it is legitimate enough, 
but, I think if I went into the fleecing business, I 
would draw the line at the lambs.” 

“ Has it been bleating ? ” 

“ No. He’s got backbone enough not to whimper. 
But I don’t like the look in the boy’s eyes to-night, 
I doubt if he can stand very heavy losses.” Then 
with increasing earnestness : — “ I am no sort of a saint, 
Gilchrist, you know that I don’t even pose for a good 
boy, but I wish you wouldn’t play with Burnett to- 
night.” 

The appeal was utterly thrown away. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


163 

“ He lost last night, and the night before. It is not 
for the winner to cry ‘ quits.’ I presume Mr. Burnett 
understands the courtesies obtaining between gentle- 
men as well as you or I do. It won’t be a long session, 
as I have another engagement for ten o’clock.” 

With which the ascending man pushed by the 
descending one, who went on his way with a relieved 
sense of having washed his hands very clean. 

He was sorry Burnett had elected to stay at home 
that night. He had planned quite an evening of it. 
First a peep in at the Vaudeville. Then the Islips, 
who lived well up on St. Nicholas Avenue. Finally 
a short-stop at the Club on his way home, where he 
was sure to pick up some points about the spring races. 

He carried his programme out conscientiously. He 
even prolonged his outing by sauntering homeward 
down the Avenue on foot, with the object in view, 
of finishing his cigar before reaching the room. He 
glanced up at the windows of his apartment when he 
came opposite to the drug-store. The shades had 
never been drawn down, and the full glare of the 
brilliantly lighted interior struck him as a disagreeable 
surprise. 

Gilchrist had said he would be gone by ten o’clock, 
and now it was nearly two. “ To-morrow morning, in 
fact.” He ascended the steps to his room in an un- 
comfortable frame of mind. Should he “ preach some 
more ” or, should he 


164 


AN OLD FOGY. 


But Gilchrist was not there to be preached to. 
Stanford sat alone by the table under the chandelier 
whose four lighted jets illumined a scene of sad dis- 
order. 

On the cold white marble of the centre-table lay, in 
scattered heaps, the cards, and the ivory counters that 
had evidently told against the boy. His arms were 
outstretched upon the table, and his head rested heavily 
on them. The drawers of his dressing-bureau stood 
wide open. On the floor, by the door, stood a valise. 
Bowen only remembered this later on. Order was 
never so conspicuously present in their apartment as 
to render disorder promptly noticeable. 

“ The boy has been fleeced again. Perhaps it would 
be kinder to let him alone.” 

And with this conviction upon him, he moved 
quietly about, darkening the room, drawing down 
the shades, and making his own preparations for bed. 
His final act was to throw a travelling shawl about 
the shoulders of the crouching form. 

Stanford lifted his head, showing a face of ghastly 
pallor in which his blood-shot eyes gleamed like 
open furnaces. 

“Thank you, Bowen. I am not asleep ; ” and lifting 
himself stiffly he struggled into his overcoat. 

“ What are you up to now?” Bowen asked. 

“ I must mail two letters to-night, and — get a breath 
of fresh air.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 165 

“ But the letters won’t go before six o’clock, man. 
Do you know what time of day it is ? ” 

“ Distinctly. But I must get a breath of fresh air. 
My head aches infernally. Go to bed, old fellow — and 
— thank you.” 

Just what he was being thanked for Bowen could 
not decide at a moment’s notice, but doubtless the 
boy’s head did ache. His eyes looked like it. The 
fresh air would do him good. He yawned frankly. 

“ I’m about done up myself, Burnett. I would not 
stay out long if I were you,” and tumbling into bed 
he was soon sleeping the heavy, dreamless sleep of 
healthy young manhood. 

Stanford dropped two letters into the first mail-box 
he came to, and then, buttoning up his coat, he walked 
briskly away from the corner drug-store, that he had 
come to feel quite a proprietary interest in. On and 
on, up the deserted avenue, where the darkened fronts 
of the decorous homes of wealth frowned grimly across 
his pathway ; where the noisy roll of carriages which 
smote upon the ears through all the earlier hours of 
night was silenced ; where an occasional blue-coated 
guardian of the night peered at him curiously to decide 
if he were an object of solicitude within his province ; 
on and up the avenue, until the gray battlemented 
walls of the old reservoir confronted him and sent a 
shudder through his slight frame. How wondrously 


AN OLD FOGY. 


1 66 

like prison walls they looked in the cold, dim light 
about them ! 

He knew that on the other side of the reservoir he 
would find a park and benches. The park offered him 
sclitude, the benches — rest. At that moment he was 
conscious of no other physical need. 

He had posted his letters. One of them was to Tom 
Burnett, the other to his mother. He wondered if 
they would quite explain the situation. Then he 
laughed aloud at his own questioning. As he recalled 
them, sitting there on the bench in Bryant park, wait- 
ing for day to break — he had said to his cousin : 

“ My DEAR Tom : — When you hear that I have gam- 
bled away one hundred dollars that belonged to the 
firm, you will think I have made you a poor return for 
all your kindness. 

“ I did some collecting for the house yesterday, after 
hours, and had the money in my room. There isn’t 
any use to go into particulars. I have played the 
scoundrel, and I can’t face the firm to tell them so. 

“ Neither can I face father. I think one look from 
him, if he knew the truth, would kill me. I’m not ex- 
actly clear-headed to-night. You see, it has all just 
happened. The fellow that won my money and — the 
firm’s — hasn’t been gone over half an hour. Next to 
father, I thought of you. I don’t think I could stand 
looking any of you in the face. Thank you, Cousin 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 67 

Thomas, for what you tried to do for me. I wasn’t 
worth the trouble. 

“ I can’t read this over. I hope I’ve made it plain. 
I don’t know, though, my head is in such a whirl. To 
think of a Burnett stealing ! One thing I mustn’t for- 
get to say before my head gets too bad. Bowen isn’t 
half the bad fellow you think he is. Bowen’s all right. 
My God — my head ! S. B.” 

To his mother, he believed, he had written: 

“ Darling Mummer : — Don’t look for me to-day, 
nor to-morrow — perhaps not for a week. I am going 
out of town on a little matter of business. Am sorry I 
could not run around to say good-bye, but my going 
is very unexpected. Lovingly, Stan.” 

“ Very unexpected indeed ! ” 

He laughed aloud again, sitting there on the cold 
iron benches, with the gray light of dawn just begin- 
ning to sift through the leafless branches of the trees. 
Then his teeth began to chatter, and, buttoning his coat 
closer up about his chin, he informed himself that he 
had a “ regular old-fashioned, southern plantation 
chill ; ” only, when he got to the chattering stage, it 
was in order for some one to apply hot-water bottles 
to his feet and heap blankets on his back. 

This time, he guessed he “ would have to shake 
it out all alone.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


1 68 

At which he laughed again, and pronounced himself 
a first-class idiot, unable to discriminate between a 
chill and a scorching fever. 

It was fever he had — a consuming fever, that brought 
with it maddening thirst. Water! He must find 
water. These parks all had drinking fountains some- 
where. If only he could find one before his head 
should burst, as it must soon — very soon. 

He staggered to his feet and started on his aimless 
search for water. He found the fountain, and stooped 
eagerly to quench his maddening thirst. 

It was the old man whose duty it was to extinguish 
the street lamps, who found him prone by the foun- 
tain, an hour later, and, lifting him gently up, shook 
his gray head solemnly over the fact, that — 

“ Boys would be boys, only this young swell had 
been too much of a one.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


169 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Having never sheltered an alien under their modest 
roof since it had sheltered them, Mr. and Mrs. Her- 
mann Damran had never recognized any necessity for 
modulated tones. This, to explain why Stanford 
Burnett was put frankly in possession of their conclu- 
sions touching himself, without even having to take 
the trouble of turning his tired head on the pillow 
their goodness had provided. 

The Hermann-Damrans were busy people, who could 
not well afford to intermit manual labor for social in- 
tercourse, so they had gotten into the habit of bawl- 
ing their views on all sorts of topics, from evolution 
down to the ash-barrel nuisance, from opposite ends of 
the eight-by-twenty ground floor, in which they carried 
on two flourishing industries. Industries by which 
they hoped eventually to finish paying for the home. 

Mr. Hermann Damran was the little old man who 
had found Stanford in Byrant Park, and, not know- 
ing what else to do with him, had brought him to his 
own home and put him to bed. 

When there were no lamps to be lighted, nor to be 
extinguished, Mr. Damran mended clocks. The front 


AN OLD FOGY. 


170 

of the shop was his, and its one show window was full 
of skilfully repaired time-pieces. Cheap wooden affairs 
principally, that needed to be wound up once in every 
eight days. Clocks that ticked loudly and aggressively 
on humble mantelpieces, with a sense of responsibility 
for labor’s punctuality. 

Space had been left among the clocks for a sign- 
board with which they had nothing in common unless 
it might be ailments. “ Doll’s Hospital,” was painted 
on the board. In the rear of the eight-by-twenty Mrs. 
Hermann Damran carried on the doll’s hospital. By 
standing a large glass-doored closet crosswise, the con- 
valescent dolls had a good view of the avenue, and 
could be seen by any one entering the clock department. 

The closet cut the store in two, leaving a small 
passage at one side, so that the sick-ward and the clock- 
mending were kept entirely separate. 

The Hermann-Damrans always insisted upon the 
“ Hermann,” because there was a Philippe-Damran in 
the next block with whom they did not desire to be 
confounded. It was astonishing how much they found 
to tell each other, seeing that, but for the intervention 
of the big closet, they would rarely ever have been out 
of each other’s sight. 

The incessant thunder of the elevated trains in Col- 
umbus Avenue, mingling with the roar of its surface 
traffic, emphasized the necessity for lifting up their 
voices, in tones which mounted shrilly. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


171 

A note of indignation rang in the answer Mrs. Dam- 
ran flung back: “I’m not thinking of the pay, Her- 
mann. Though with a thousand to pay on the house 
yet, we needs to.” 

“What then, Minna? Fm sure it ain’t the trouble. 
He’s as gentle as a little child, and handsomer than 
any doll in the hospital.” 

Mrs. Hermann came around in front of the show 
closet to put a bisque doll among the convalescents. 
She came and leaned over the counter where her hus- 
band was at work. “ I want a bit of copper-wire, Dam- 
ran, for a bad spine ; got any ? ” 

“ Hermann placed a box of odds and ends before 
her. She turned its contents over slowly. “ I hope I 
ain’t hard-hearted, Damran, but I won’t be willing for 
that young fellow to stay very long.” 

“ I never thought you was hard-hearted before, 
Minna. You generally lead me when it comes to the 
golden rule. But this time ” 

“ But this time ” — she took the words away from him 
with a snap — “ I’ve got to think of our Hattie.” 

“ Our Hattie ? Where does she come in ? ” 

“True,” said Mrs. Hermann, fishing up a bit of 
copper wire, “ she ain’t nothing but a trained nurse, 
while to look at that boy’s hands you would think he’d 
been raised on milk o’roses, but trained nurses can turn 
fool sometimes. And that boy’s eyes would turn any 
girl’s head.” 


172 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ But I thought Hattie was in for a long case.” 

“We don’t know that. It’s a rich woman’s broken 
leg. It may be long and it may be short.” 

“ The lady’s leg ? ” 

“ Hattie’s case, Hermann.” 

Then they both laughed comfortably. It sounded 
queerly enough to Stanford. He had forgotten how 
to laugh himself. He wondered what any one could 
find to laugh about. 

Mrs. Damran had not tarried long at the clock coun- 
ter. She had gone back to the operating room, where 
she was now performing a delicate operation on the 
injured spine of a waxen court beauty. 

“ Tell me, again, Hermann, just what he said when 
you took his breakfast up. I don’t want to be hard on 
the boy, but I do wish you could find out something 
about his folks.” 

“ I asked him, again, if he didn’t have some kin 
he’d like me to notify of his whereabouts. He admits 
he has folks, here, in the city, but says he don’t care to 
communicate with them just now. He’s a gentleman, 
Minna, I’m sure of that.” 

“ And I haven’t denied it, Hermann. Go on.” 

“And he ain’t ever been a drinking man.” 

“ And I haven’t said he was. Go on, Hermann.” 

“ Well. Then he pulled out his watch and told me 
he wanted me to keep it as surety. He supposed it 
was good for a few days’ board.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


173 


“ We ain’t pawnbrokers,Damran,andwe ain’t sharpers. 
If you take that watch, and agree to let him board it 
out, we’ll have him on our hands for two solid months 
at the least, if we deal honest by him.” 

“ It’s not likely Hermann Damran would deal any 
other way with man or boy,” roared the old clock-mender 
in tones that were heard by the boy upstairs even 
above the thunder of a passing elevated train. 

“ I’m not quite deaf, Hermann, nor much more ’n a 
mile off,” Mrs. Hermann bawled back with unabated 
good humor. 

“ I think I could make the lad useful, Minna,” said 
Hermann, bringing his voice down a semitone. 

“ Useful ! That fine young gentleman upstairs ! ” 

There was such a volume of scorn in the loud, shrill 
tones, that Stanford writhed on his pillows. 

Had he then become an object of contempt to every 
one who saw him ? He listened for Hermann’s answer : 

“ There is sometimes a backbone that ain’t visible 
at first sight, Minna, and, because a man has stumbled 
and fell once, it ain’t no reason for thinking he’ll 
never be able to walk, aye, even to run, in the right 
road, again. Don’t be hard on the lad, wife.” 

“ You’re a good man, Hermann Damran, there ain’t 
none better, if you are my husband. But fine young 
gentlemen ain’t as easily regulated as eight-day clocks, 
Hermann, and broken laws are harder to mend than 
broken doll-babies.” 


174 


AN OLD FOGY. 


The clock-mender sighed heavily. 

“ That boy’s done something he’s ashamed of, I’m 
sure of that, but, if — if our Hattie had happened to a- 
been a boy, she might a-met the same temptation he’s 
fell before. You ain’t the woman to give a shove to a 
man whilst he’s down, Minna, I’m sure of that.” 

“ What’s your plan for making him useful ? ” came in 
a mollified voice from the sick-doll’s ward. 

“ He can fetch and carry. There ain’t much fun for 
my old legs, going after the clocks, or carrying them 
home. He’s just got a little touch of fever from being 
exposed to the night air. He’ll be downstairs by to- 
morrow, at the farthest, and, if he wants to stay on, I’ll 
make the proposition to him.” 

“ I hope Harriet’s case will prove a real bad one,” 
said Mrs. Damran, with heartless inconsequence, and 
then the incoming of a customer with a derelict clock 
cut the discussion short. 

Overhead, Stanford was staring grimly at a highly- 
colored art-supplement which formed the principal wall 
decoration of the little back bedroom. 

He “ could fetch and carry ” for a sixth Avenue 
clock-maker ! Surely he had drained life’s cups to the 
dregs, and should like to throw it away. 

He had gone through every phase of humiliation, 
mentally, since recovering consciousness after his 
swoon. 

He stubbornly refused to look at a newspaper. Of 


AN OLD FOGY. 


U5 


course his name had been blazoned in every one of 
them as an embezzler, with all the frightful conspic- 
uity of lurid headlines. 

Nothing ever escaped the New York reporters. 
Nothing was too small for their embellishing pencils. 
And, in his fall, he had dragged down the entire Burnett 
family. How Tom must have cursed him ! 

He felt sorry for them all in a dull way. Sorry for 
his Uncle George who, with all his pompous purse 
pride, had never known a taint of dishonor ; sorry for 
Tom who, by having introduced him to the firm, had 
in a manner vouched for him. It was pretty rough on 
Tom ; sorry for his father, that grand old man, who 
would rather know him dead a thousand times over 
than dishonored. 

From thoughts of his mother he cowered in actual 
physical pain. She knew by this time, of course — three 
days since it had all happened. She knew now that 
his message about his going into the country was all 
a lie. 

He wondered what particular paper “they” had first 
read it in. He tried to imagine how they had all looked 
at each other, on seeing his name heading an announce- 
ment of embezzlement ! 

Then he thought of how indifferently he had often 
read accounts of other fellows having done this same 
sort of thing. Always with a contemptuous sense of 
their great moral weakness such as no gentleman could 


AN OLD FOGY. 


176 

ever know, otherwise than theoretically. He wished, 
when a man got as badly tangled up as he was, that 
some stronger will than his own could be evoked in his 
behalf. He was of the impression that the only gentle- 
manly thing left for him to do was to dispose of him- 
self finally and promptly. 

The dead always found apologists. Even his father 
would forgive when he had put himself forever beyond 
the possibility of offending again. 

But life and the love of it, pulsed strongly in his 
young veins. He felt no strong drawing towards that 
sombre sort of heroism. He failed to comprehend why 
suicide was called cowardice. To him it stood for the 
acme of bravery. It was abject, he admitted that, 
but life appealed to him very strongly. He did not 
know just yet what he should do with his. Perhaps 
even going after disabled clocks and carrying back 
mended ones might become endurable in the course 
of time. 

And the lady in the big Gainsborough hat winked at 
him from the highly-colored art-supplement, as if to 
say, of course it might ! He blinked back at her once 
or twice and then his long black lashes lay quite still 
on his white cheeks. Perhaps his sleep would have 
been more restful, his dreams less troubled, if he could 
have known what really had happened on the morning 
of his disappearance. 

Tom Burnett was not the man to let the Burnett 


AN OLD FOGY. 


1 77 


name be dragged through the mire for want of activity 
on his own part. 

He received the agitated note Stanford had been 
thoughtful enough to stamp for special delivery, at an 
early hour the next morning. It was awaiting him at 
his New York office. 

His first act was to take a hansom and have himself 
driven rapidly to the drug-store, where he invaded 
the upstairs room with scant ceremony. Perhaps he 
“ would find the boy there still.” 

He found only Mr. Bowen, who was dallying with a 
ten o’clock breakfast. 

“ Hello, Bowen, you here yet ? ” 

Bowen used his napkin rather nervously and laughed. 
He hoped Burnett had not come there to raise a row 
about Gilchrist. 

“ Yes; infernally lazy, I know you are thinking, but 
I rather overdid it last night, and overslept myself this 
morning. Stanford must have slipped out at the 
usual hour. I missed him when I got up.” 

“He was called out of town somewhat suddenly,” 
said Tom calmly, “business of a private nature. I 
had a note from him this morning. Thought possibly 
I might get here before he left. He asked me to look 
in his desk for some papers relating to some business 
he was attending to for me, so, with your permis- 
sion ” 


12 


i 7 8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Certainly. That is his desk by the west window. 
With your permission I’ll finish my breakfast.” 

And while Tom made a hurried search of the desk, 
for the vouchers that must have been there for the 
hundred dollars that his cousin had appropriated, 
Bowen gave his undivided attention to the preparation 
of another cup of coffee. There was a cat in the 
meal-tub, somewhere, but so long as he was not to 
have an overhauling about Gilchrist, he was quite 
willing to let “big Burnett,” adjust matters for ‘Tittle 
Burnett ” without interference. 

His visitor turned the key in the desk-lock with a 
click, presently, while he was still drinking his coffee 
with purposeful deliberation. 

“ I believe I have all that I am entitled to,” said 
Tom, rising with a relieved face. “ Sorry to have in- 
truded so early in the morning, but have a pretty full 
day ahead of me.” 

“ That’s a dig in the ribs for me,” said Bowen, 
laughing — then, with sudden seriousness, “ don’t be 
shy of me, Mr. Burnett. If little Burnett is in any 
trouble, I owe it to him to help him out of it. You 
can trust me.” 

Tom extended his hand and the two men tacitly 
signed a compact to protect the lad’s honor, in a firm 
grip. Then he said : 

“Yes — he is in trouble of a certain sort. But none 
that you can help him out of. The boy has been play- 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 79 

ing cards and he doesn’t want to face his mother and 
sisters, just yet awhile, that’s all.” 

And, as he almost raced down the steps and tumbled 
into the waiting hansom*, he wondered if that was the 
sort of lie the angels recorded to a man’s debit or 
credit. It didn’t much matter which, as he had still 
several more to tell. 

The one he had prepared for Stanford’s chief, 
rolled off his tongue quite glibly. 

“ His cousin had been called out of town on press- 
ing family business and had asked him to hand in the 
vouchers, and the accompanying hundred dollars which 
he had collected for the firm after hours the day before.” 

A simple business transaction which occupied about 
ten minutes of time. So that was all there was to it. 
Bowen might discover the weak spot in his armor of 
defence, but he believed he could rely upon the young 
man to observe a discreet reticence in the matter 
Stanford had especially said Bowen was all right. 
Now that the hundred dollars was paid in the firm was 
all right, too, and there was nothing left to do but — 
to find the boy. 

To that end he inserted a cautious personal in sev- 
eral different papers. 

“ S. B. Business matter adjusted to every one’s sat- 
isfaction. Call at office of — T. B.” 

But as S. B. was studiously avoiding all newspapers, 
nothing came of T. B’s kindly worded recall. 


i8o 


AN OLD FOGY. 


CHAPTER XV. 

“ UPWARDS of five hundred thousand two-legged 
animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontal 
positions ; their heads all in night-caps, and full of the 
foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and 
swaggers in his rank dens of shame ; and the mother, 
with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid, dying in- 
fant, whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten. 
All these heaped and huddled together, with nothing 
but a little carpentry and masonry between them ; 
crammed in, like salted fish in their barrels, or, welter- 
ing, shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed 
vipers, each strugglingto get its head above the others; 
such work goes on under that smoke-counterpane. 
I wonder that Dor£ has never canvased that word 
picture of Carlyle’s for an Inferno.” 

From where they sat, grouped under the two-globed 
chandelier over the centre table, Mrs. Ethbert and the 
girls could not see the frozen calm that had settled on 
the Colonel’s face. 

For fully an hour he had been walking up and down 
the circumscribed space, without a spoken word, his 
gray head bent, his lean brown hands clasped behind 
him, as was his habit when perturbed. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


1 8 1 


He was standing with his back to the women, before 
the window that gave him the freest outlook over the 
“ smoke-counterpane ” under which the city lay half 
effaced. It readily suggested the gruesome quotation. 

Olivia’s face went a shade paler and a tremor ran 
visibly through her slight frame. She was laying on 
the marginal colors in a design she was working at in 
off-hours. She laid down her brush and frowned. 

Margaret leaned towards her and smoothed back a 
stray lock of hair upon her temples. It was at once a 
caress and a plea. The girl looked at her through a 
sudden mist, and then rebelled in an angry whisper : 

“If father just wouldn’t be so tragic. Ugh! he 
makes one feel as if a dozen Egyptian pitchers of 
vipers had been emptied about one’s feet.” 

“ Poor papa,” said Meg with infinite tenderness. 

Mrs. Burnett had laid down her sewing and gone 
over to the window with that swift desire to comfort 
that was ever present with her. She laid her hand on 
the Colonel’s arm. 

“ I always did hate Carlyle,” said Olivia, casting 
about recklessly for a scape-goat, “ one needs to be 
fortified with sunshine and the philosophy of the stoics 
to survive Sartor Resartus. Moreover,” with fierce 
directness, “ why is it always ‘poor papa.’ Why should 
mother always have to hide her own hurt to ease his ? 
Are all men so selfish ? ” 

“ Hush, child.” And Margaret glanced nervously 


182 


AN OLD FOGY. 


towards the two tall figures standing side by side in 
the window. 

The small portion of sky that was visible to them 
over the surrounding house-top, was reddened by the 
glare of countless electric lights. “ The Devil’s Aurora 
Borealis,” the Colonel had called it, when first investi- 
gating it. 

Lights were shining in innumerable windows in the 
tall apartment-house that overtopped theirs, just across 
the street. It suggested populousness. 

“ Crammed in like salted fish in their barrels,” the 
Colonel repeated in a sullen murmur. “ I wonder 
where under that smoke-counterpane, under that 
hideous coverlet of vapors and putrefactions, that 
fermenting vat of vice — he is ? ” 

“ Oh, Ethbert ! ” 

That pathetic wail nerved Olivia to desperation. 
She flung her paint-brush from her angrily, and started 
to her feet. 

“ Father, have you no conception of your own utter 
selfishness and cruelty?” 

Three amazed faces were turned upon her at once. 

“ Oh, I know you are all as much surprised as if a 
kitten had uttered speech in one of the dead languages. 
A rebellious naughty kitten at that. But I can’t stand 
it any longer. Stanford has hurt no one any worse 
than he has hurt me. He was my — my — chum. My 
—my — a piece of myself. He has struck you in a vital 


AN OLD FOGY. 


83 


spot, father — your pride. And you’ve been so busy 
nursing your own wounds, that you have lost sight of 
mother’s.” 

“ Mildred, my dear ! ” 

The Colonel turned a wistful look of surprised apol- 
ogy on his wife. She was very pale. He had not 
noticed how thin she had grown. Olivia’s fearless 
young voice arrested his attention before he could say 
anything more. 

“And, father, I don’t believe Stan has done any- 
thing so very terrible after all. You might have more 
faith in your own son.” 

Mrs. Burnett lifted her hand imperiously. 

“ Hush, Olivia.” 

“No, mother, I will not. You have stood between 
father and us too long. He does not know us and we 
don’t know him. I am introducing him to one of his 
daughters to-night, for the first time.” 

She laughed defiantly. Her cheeks were aflame, 
her great eyes glowing. 

“ Strange,” her father was thinking, he had “ never 
observed how pretty the child was.” 

“ Another rebel ! ” he said stiffly. 

“ If you choose to call it so, sir. Yes.” 

He consented, however, to a parley. 

“ Then I presume Stanford’s flimsy note to his 
mother is quite satisfactory to your matured judg- 
ment.” 


184 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Don’t sneer, father. I’ve heard poor Stan say 
he’d rather you’d strike him any day than pelt him 
with sarcasm. No, I don’t believe in that note. Nobody 
does now. It has been a month since he wrote it. I 
think he did something he was ashamed of, and ran 
away from the consequences.” 

“Which I am quite sure Thomas met, like the gen- 
tleman he is. I should like to have my brother 
George’s formula for turning out satisfactory sons.” 

“ Perhaps he didn’t have any,” said Ollie daringly. 
“ Perhaps he considered his son his equal, and, when- 
ever restraint was necessary, was satisfied to use a 
snaffle-bit instead of a curb.” 

The distress on the Colonel’s face might have dis- 
armed Nemesis. 

“ Mildred, my dear, did I use a snaffle or a curb-bit 
with our son ? ” he asked helplessly. 

“ Mother’s not in this, papa — if you will excuse the 
slang. It is I, Ollie the kitten, who am having a 
good time clearing off old scores for poor old Stan and 
myself.” 

The Colonel winced as if he had been pelted by hail- 
stones, and feebly essayed a diversion. He would 
ignore the little shrew entirely. 

“Thomas sends you word, Mildred, my dear, that 
you are not to be at all uneasy about Stanford. He 
is well and safe.” 

“ My cousin Thomas knows no more about Stan- 


AN OLD FOGY. 


I8 5 

ford’s whereabouts than I do. It is a way men have, 
good men especially. They think women can stand 
nothing at all, so they must have the truth portioned 
out to them in third triturations — is not that what the 
homeopathists call their treble-distilled dilutions?” 

The Colonel brought his hand heavily down upon the 
table. His gray eyebrows met in a heavy frown. The 
girl must be quelled. 

“ What grounds have you for charging Thomas with 
prevarication ? ” 

“ This — and this — and this.” 

From the recesses of her pocket-book she promptly 
produced thin slips cut from three separate newspapers. 

“ If T. B. knows where S. B. is, why does he not 
take that advertisement out of the papers ? If you will 
notice, the last one bears date December eighteenth. 
That was yesterday.” 

There was silence in the room for full five minutes. 
Olivia’s excitement was passing. Her chin quivered 
pitifully when she spoke again. 

“ It had to come out to-night. I don’t know what 
made me so wordy. But mother — father — Meg, don’t 
oppose me. I am going to find him. I must find him. 
I can’t stand not knowing where Stan is, or what he is 
doing.” 

“ You find him ? ” said the Colonel with ready scorn. 

“ Yes, sir, I.” 

“ Silly girl, how ? ” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


1 86 

“ By going down into the fermenting vat to look for 
him, if need be.” 

She stood still for a moment, defiantly erect. Then 
slowly gathered up her paints and brushes, leaving the 
spot where she had been at work scrupulously neat, 
and went to her own room. Margaret soon followed 
her. 

Mrs. Burnett made a spiritless show of resuming her 
sewing. Her fingers lagged, and her thread knotted 
in the most exasperating manner. And when she at- 
tempted a fresh strand, the eye of the needle proved as 
elusive as hope. The clock on the mantelpiece struck 
midnight. By the time the last of its twelve solemn 
strokes had died away she lifted her face with a wan 
smile. 

“ You are keeping late hours for a laboring man, 
Ethbert. Shall I put out the gas ? ” 

“Not just yet, if you please, my dear.” 

Tacitly each understood the other’s reluctance to 
plunge the flat in total darkness. Stanford might even 
then be looking up to the fifth-floor windows for some 
encouragement. They should not like the beacon-light 
of home to fail him in his extremity. 

“ But you need rest, Ethbert.” 

“ Rest ! ” He sprang from his seat as if pursued by 
furies. “ Rest ! Will I not have all eternity to rest 
in ? Mildred, is the girl right ? Is it I who have driven 
your son from you ? Or ” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


18/ 

He waited for no possible response from her. “ Is it 
the natural outcome of the unnatural pressure suddenly 
brought to bear upon him, in his immature moral con- 
dition ? 

“ He wanted the city. He wanted to measure his 
strength against other men’s. He must have ‘ aven- 
ues.’ He must have room for expansion. He has 
found his avenue — on the road to ruin. He has ex- 
panded into a — scoundrel. 

“ Olivia says I feel only my own hurt. There she 
does me some injustice. I would gladly bear twice 
the load that is crushing me to the earth, now, wife, 
to lift the whole burden of it from your heart. What- 
ever I may have deserved at his hands, you deserved 
nothing but good.” 

“ Perhaps we underrated the temptations that beset 
him. We ought to have guarded him more closely,” 
said Mrs. Burnett sadly. 

“ We could not keep him in a bandbox. He volun- 
tarily sought the current, and it has proven too swift 
for his strength. It is this mad thirst for the heated, 
feverish, artificial life of the city, that is sapping the 
strength of our young men and women. Boys turn 
in disgust from the slow plodding progress of the 
farm. They must rush from the school-rooms to the 
city, to become lawyers, editors, doctors — anything, 
but honest simple tillers of the soil. 

“ The fever is as intense with the girls. Every ave- 


1 88 


AN OLD FOGY. 


nue is open to women now, why should they not enter 
in and climb to luxurious heights where their talents 
will shine and life be made worth the living? Why 
should they skim milk and churn butter and count 
eggs, when they can be type-writers, or telegraph 
operators or shop ‘ ladies ’ in the city ? 

“ The city ! — a wasp’s nest where a thousand incompe- 
tents are stung to death where one achieves a foothold ! 
The city ! — where a multitude of crushed victims fall 
under the chariot wheels where one rides in triumph ! 

“ The city is an arrogant despot. She makes merci- 
less conditions with her thralls. She flaunts her gay 
prizes in the faces of weaklings and says give me of 
your best, and — perhaps these shall be yours. Give 
me your talents, your time, your heart’s blood, your 
nerve-power, constant stint, and — I may reward you. 
But the prizes are few and the contestants are legion. 

“ Poor fools ! Her faintest promise goes so far with 
them. One and all, we are glad to enter the race. 
Old men and young, geniuses and dolts, sick men and 
well, asking no quarter, holding on to her bedraggled 
skirts with the desperation of the doomed. Failure is 
not for me ! It is for that poor weakling who fell by 
the wayside just before I entered the lists, or for the 
one who will come after me. 

“ Those who failed were too old or too young, too 
weak or too stupid. In me all the conditions are 
favorable. I was foreordained to success. I am of the 


AN OLD FOGY. 


189 

elect. There is no such thing as luck. If a man fails, 
it is his own demerit ; if he succeeds, his own deserv- 
ing. And so we go, crawling over the stony face of the 
city like ants in a hill, each bent upon the safe trans- 
portation of its own little grain of sand. And what 
did we do when we turned our backs on Burnett’s Hol- 
low but add five more ants to the ant-hill ! ” 

The words fell from his lips in a bitter torrent ; a 
dark red flush dyed his forehead. Mrs. Burnett stood 
up with her folded work in her hands. Neither he nor 
she could stand much more of this. 

“ Mr. Burnett,” she said, in the commanding fashion 
that carried him back to the old plantation, “ you have 
talked yourself into a highly imaginative frame of 
mind and me into a bad headache. Our coming to 
this ‘ wasp’s nest ’ was rather a forced hand. But don’t 
talk any more to-night, please. I am getting hope- 
lessly mixed on my classics. Can’t tell where Carlyle 
ends and you begin.” 

“ We may as well extinguish the gas,” said the 
Colonel ; and he did it with a profound sigh, leaving 
the only room visible from the street below in utter 
darkness. 

There was only one unpardonable sin in the Colonel’s 
code, and his only son had been guilty of it. It was — 
cowardice ! 


AN OLD FOGY. 


190 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Rain was falling with a dreary persistence, freezing 
as it fell. The wind, which had been whistling shrilly 
among the telegraph wires all day, sent the sleet in 
swift, angry dashes against the large window-panes of 
the house on Columbia Heights. The wet flags of the 
sidewalks gleamed icily under the electric lights. The 
few wayfarers that passed held tightly to their um- 
brella-handles and stepped warily. 

Tom Burnett made several excursions from the fire- 
place to the front windows, each time returning to his 
place with a more discouraged face. Noticing his rest- 
lessness, his father laid down his paper with sociable 
intent. 

“You are not thinking of going out again to-night, 
Thomas ? ” 

“Yes, sir — thinking of it; but I am afraid that is 
about as far as I will get to-night/’ 

“ Rather savage outlook, hey ? ” 

“And getting worse every minute. The sort of 
night to make a man appreciate a fireside.” 

“ Exactly.” 

The banker smiled blandly, as if in acknowledgment 
of a personal tribute. Regarding himself as the foun- 


AN OLD FOGY. 


I 9 I 

tain-head of all the material blessings surrounding 
them, Tom’s appreciation of them was nothing more 
than his own due. 

Mrs. Burnett glanced up from a lap full of glistening 
samples of silks and satins. They had been sent over 
from New York on approval. She had just agreed 
with Agnes that “ ivory white ” was much richer than 
“ pearl white,” and with Kitty that “ satin was dread- 
fully trying,” without losing a word that passed be- 
tween the two men. 

Only women thoroughly well up in their duties as 
social factors of importance are equal to such complex 
mental processes. She looked at Tom over the shim- 
mering fragments. 

“ I think, son, unless your engagement is a very 
pressing one, I should rather not see you go out again 
to-night.” 

“ Oh, it doesn’t amount to an engagement. I just 
thought I would go over and sit with Uncle Bert a- 
while. I believe he rather likes to have me drop in for 
a game of chess.” 

“ Anything from the boy yet ? ” Mr. Burnett asked 
with a brisk interest. 

And when Tom answered “ no ” a slight chill seemed 
to have crept into the comfortable atmosphere, lower- 
ing its cheerful aspect appreciably. 

Mr. Burnett twirled his smoking-cap about on his 
head in irritation. 


192 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ It’s pretty rough on them all. I’ll be hanged if it 
isn’t. I wish I could do something for Bert, but, deuce 
take the fellow, he holds me at arm’s-length. I am 
powerless. A man doesn’t care, at my time of life, to 
carry a hundred and ninety-eight pounds of flesh up 
four flights of steps just to be snubbed. I suppose he 
told you about my note?” 

Tom looked at his father apprehensively. 

“ No, sir. I didn’t know you had written to him.” 

“ Well, I did. I told him if he cared to have de- 
tectives put on Stanford’s track, I would defray all 
the expense myself. I also asked him to let me know 
how he was of! for ready cash. In short, it was just 
such a note as any well-disposed brother might have 
written to another one under the circumstances.” 

And having, with some difficulty, flung one of his 
short stout legs over the other, he caressed the exalted 
slipper with the serene air of a man who has given 
convincing proof that he knows how to do the hand- 
some thing. 

Tom looked steadily at a silver arrow-head visible 
among Kitty’s brown locks. His lower jaw was set, as 
if it had been put on duty to keep his upper lip from 
curling. 

“ And what did Uncle Ethbert answer? ” 

“ Oh, mounted a high horse, as usual. But I am 
determined not to let Ethbert’s testiness make me for- 
get that he is my only brother, or that he has a good 


AN OLD FOGY. 


193 


deal to try him.” This with an air of large liberality. 
“ He wrote back that he was very much obliged to me 
for my generous offer, but that, as his son had volun- 
tarily closed all communication between himself and 
his family, it should only be opened again by his own 
volition. Plenty of big words, of course. Bert 
would have made a splendid fourth-of-July orator.” 

“ He would have made a better Brutus,” said Tom, 
drawing a short breath. “ I am half inclined to take 
his view about Stanford, and I would, if it wasn’t for 
poor Aunt Milly.” 

Mr. Burnett turned sharply upon the feminine group 
about the samples. 

“ By the way, when have any of you women been 
over there ? ” 

Mrs. Burnett arched her fine brows in surprise. She 
was not in the habit of being taken to task touching 
her social duties. 

“ I think Mildred understands that my throat pre- 
vents my going about much in winter. I have written 
half a dozen notes lately, begging her to come over. I 
even hinted at what was in progress. I thought it 
might take her mind off her troubles if she should get 
interested in the wedding.” 

“ I hope they are comfortable over there,” said Mr. 
Burnett reflectively. “ Steam-heat I suppose, Tom, in 
that cock-loft of theirs ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, sir.” 


194 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Kitty frowned severely at this prolonged digression. 
They had just begun on the samples. And those 
samples meant so very much to all of them. 

“ My goodness, papa, I don’t suppose any of the 
Bert Burnetts doubt our feeling for them. I am sure 
our attitude has been the proper family one from the 
beginning. All the holding off has been on their side. 
We can’t be expected to climb those steps every time 
we go to New York, to tell them how fond we are of 
them. I for one have not the time. By the time I 
have been to the riding academy, and to my psycho- 
physical class, and to Madame Lajaume’s talk, and 
done a little shopping, the day is gone and I am used 
up.” 

“ Small wonder,” said Tom laughing dryly. 

Agnes, alone, had not yet entered upon her defence. 
She did it now, laughing lazily, but not without some 
signs of discomfiture. 

“ Well, I did go there yesterday, but I am not at all 
sure that I shall go soon again. You know, papa, the 
walking is just horrid since the snow, and there are no 
cross-town cars within miles of them.” 

“ Plenty of cabs.” 

“ Yes, but I don’t believe I should care to call on 
Aunt Mildred in a carriage. Would you ? Any- 
body?” 

The appeal being impersonal Tom answered readily, 

“ Of course not.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


195 


Mrs. Burnett said she thought Agnes was right. 

“ Well, anyhow, I got there. I found Aunt Mildred 
alone. She looked as if she had been crying. I told 
her right off that I had come to ask Ollie to be my 
bridesmaid. You know, father, I am to have six, two 
white ones, two pink, and two blue. Ollie would have 
made a lovely pink, and I really am quite fond of the 
little goose. 

“ Aunt Mildred looked at me in a frozen sort of way, 
and said : * Then you don’t know, Agnes, that your 
pupil has put herself beyond the reach of such pleasant 
offices ? ’ As I didn’t in the least know what she 
meant, I just stared stupidly, and said, after her, ‘ My 
pupil ! ’ And Aunt Mildred froze harder than ever. 
4 Yes,’ she said, ‘your teachings have borne bitter fruit 
for me. Olivia has allied herself with the Salvationists. 
Her direct excuse is that she must find Stanford. 
But, poor little fanatic, she says she must have some 
higher mission in life than our narrow home circle 
affords; some broader field for her energies; that, 
even with Stanford found and restored to me, she 
must still be her brother’s keeper — in a broader sense.’ ” 

Banker Burnett leaned towards his eldest daughter, 
empurpled with rage. 

“‘Your teachings!’ Have you been monkeying 
with the Salvation Army?” 

Agnes recoiled haughtily from the loud tones and— 
the idea. 


196 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“You should know better than to ask me such a 
question, father. Have you ever found me lacking in 
refinement ? Olivia Burnett is a badly-balanced, in- 
tense little simpleton, who has taken me entirely too 
seriously. That is all there is to it. When I gave her 
a slight insight into the wretched condition of some of 
my widows with small children, how could I possibly 
imagine she was going to embrace the poor of the 
whole city ? ” 

“ Infernally queer taste,” her father muttered, sinking 
back relieved, now that he knew no smirch of the 
Army clung to Agnes’ skirts. 

“ Then that was Ollie I saw this afternoon,” said 
Tom, who had been twisting his watch-chain nervously 
during this passage-at-arms. “ I dashed by her in such 
a hurry — but — I thought she looked at me queerly.” 

“Dashed by her, where?” the girls asked in con- 
cert. 

“ At the entrance to the bridge. There were two of 
them. Army girls, I mean.” 

“ Doing what ? ” 

“ Handing out circulars, or something or other. I 
knew the bonnets. That poke is as good a passport 
as the nun’s white flippers. Otherwise they were 
nothing but mackintosh and umbrella. I heard my 
train snorting towards the cable overhead, so I made a 
dash for it ; but, hurried as I was, I could not fail to 
notice how sweet and placid the faces under those ugly 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 97 

bonnets were. They made me think of two white 
lilies blossoming out of the ooze and slime.” 

“ Oh, Tom, don’t be utterly ridiculous. Olivia Bur- 
nett standing by East River bridge in that horrid 
Chatham square handing out things ! It is too 
much ! ” 

Kitty’s handsome eyes dilated with the horror of it. 

“ Oh, the location counts for nothing. She was as 
safe there as she would have been in this room,” said 
Tom. Then a dark flush passed over his face. “ But 
it is an infernal shame. The whole business, I mean. 
It will be more than a passing fad with her.” 

Agnes reddened under the explicit emphasis he laid 
on the personal pronoun. 

Mrs. Burnett interposed quickly to prevent any more 
pointed remarks. 

u But, about her being one of your maids, daughter ? ” 

Agnes spread her hands outward with a gesture of 
despair. 

“ Really, mamma, I think I shall have to find 
another pink. I don’t think I could possibly have a 
Salvation Army girl among my maids.” 

“ How about Meg?” 

“ I asked Aunt Mildred, but she did not thaw a par- 
ticle. Said ‘ Margaret would have to decide for her- 
self.’ ” 

Mrs. Burnett’s handsome face clouded. “It is all 
very unfortunate, very unpleasant,” and she glanced 


198 


AN OLD FOGY. 


absently at the samples from which all the brightness 
seemed stricken. 

Kitty flamed up wrathfully : 

“ I sincerely wish the Bert Burnetts were where they 
came from. I wish, papa, you had never said a word 
to them about coming north. They are the most per- 
verse, unmanageable creatures I ever saw. If they 
would let us be nice to them and manage for them, as 
we want to do, everybody would be comfortable, and 
nobody need know how dreadfully poor they are. I 
hope it’s not false pride on my part to think it is false 
pride on their part to be so awfully proud of being 
poor. I think it’s just as bad taste to flaunt your pov- 
erty in people’s faces, as it is to flaunt your riches. 
I’m awfully fond of the Bert Burnetts, but they get in 
the way of everything you want to do for them, and 
are forever tripping you up with some of their ridicu- 
lous scruples.” 

Mr. Burnett nodded his large head approvingly. 

“ I am very much of Kitty’s way of thinking. It is 
a confounded nuisance to have a brother within 
stone’s-throw of you and not even to know what sort 
of business he is engaged in. Do you know, Thomas ? ” 

“ Nothing more than he saw fit to tell us both, sir. 
That he had taken position with the Fourth Avenue 
Car Company. I have respected his implied desire not 
to be questioned.” 

“ Taken position ! ” said the banker with rising 


AN OLD FOGY. 1 99 

wrath ; “ why, sir, we don’t know but what he cleans 
the car-stables for the company ! ” 

“ No, sir, we don’t. But all I have to say, is that, 
if my uncle has undertaken to clean those car-stables, 
they will be well cleaned.” 

“ Ivory, I think, mamma,” said Agnes, resolutely 
bringing the question of the wedding gown to the 
front. “ White.” 

The rain was falling with a dreary persistence, freez- 
ing as it fell. The wind, which had been whistling 
shrilly among the telegraph wires all day, sent the 
sleet in swift, angry dashes against the small, square 
panes of an upstairs window in a down-town street. 

Two mackintoshes and two bonnets with the red 
and blue insignia of the Salvation Army twisted about 
their crowns hung side by side on the door of the 
room. Two wet umbrellas were standing in an empty 
jardiniere to drip. Two pairs of rubber shoes were 
ranged about a tiny stove to dry. 

One of the owners of these inelegancies was making 
a cup of tea at the tiny stove ; the other one was writ- 
ing a letter. The letter-writer glanced up at the tea- 
maker with bright, determined eyes : 

“ I want my dear mother to know how each day 
passes with me. I think she will be glad to know that 
I have for my mate a worker of experience, and that 
her name is Margaret. You know that is my darling 
sister’s name.” 


200 


AN OLD FOGY. 


It comes so easy for her to say Margaret. “ I have 
told mother she is not to think I am unhappy, for I 
am not. For the first time in my life I know what it 
is to efface self, to lose my own identity. I am very 
happy with you, Margaret dear.” 

And then she fell to work vigorously again with her 
pen. Margaret, measuring the tea thriftily, smiled con- 
fidentially into the tea-caddy. 

She was an old hand at the business. She was 
used to the harness. She had no intention of ever de- 
serting from the ranks. The privilege of effacing self 
grew more precious every day. Would it be so with 
that pretty enthusiast scribbling away so confidently? 
After they had found — him — would her “ mate ” still be 
willing to don the poke-bonnet, and muffle herself in 
the clumsy mackintosh, to go out in the highways 
and the by-ways of darkest New York in all sorts of 
weather, content so long as she was about the Mas- 
ter’s work ? 

The old hand at the business had her doubts on that 
score, but she kept them locked within a very faithful 
bosom. 

A framed photograph of Stanford Burnett hung 
over the table where Olivia was writing. She, the tea- 
maker, had been requested to impress his features upon 
her memory, so that by no mischance should she meet 
him face to face and not know him. 

The wet flags of the sidewalks gleamed icily under 


AN OLD FOGY. 


201 


the electric lights. The few wayfarers that passed 
held tightly to their umbrella-handles and stepped 
warily. 

Her letter finished, Olivia went and stood by the 
window that showed her all that dismal outside pict- 
ure. When Margaret called her to tea, she turned a 
very white face inward. 

“ Who knows, perhaps he was among the very men 
that passed while I was standing there ! Oh, Mar- 
garet ! ” 

And Margaret, for lack of other comfort to dispense, 
put another lump of sugar into the cup of tea and 
selected the best piece of toast on the plate, for “ her 
pretty mate.” 

It was when he came home after nightfall that Mrs. 
Burnett gave the Colonel Olivia’s letter to read. She 
scrutinized his face anxiously while he was reading it. 
He was “ about it a long time,” and yet it “was not 
such a lengthy production.” Presently, in a slow, 
sonorous fashion, he read aloud two extracts from it : 

“ There are two worlds, mother dear. One where we 
live a short time, and which we leave never to return 
to ; the other, which we must soon enter never to 
leave. I should like to enter there with one little sheaf, 
at least ; and I believe I have selected the field where 
it can most surely be garnered.” 

The other extract was personal to himself. 

“ I should like to visit you often, but I shrink from 


202 


AN OLD FOGY. 


father’s cold contempt. I have chosen my walk in life 
deliberately, and I promise you shall know all about 
me.” 

The sonorous voice broke. The Colonel passed a 
tremulous hand across his brow once or twice. Then 
he lifted sad, grave eyes to his wife’s face. 

“ It is the letter of a zealot — perhaps of a mistaken 
zealot. But who am I, that I should judge?” Then, 
while a flush passed swiftly over his high-bred face, he 
added, with a ring of pride in his tones : “ At least, she 
did not slink away from us like a cowardly cur. Tell 
her for me, Mildred, that we will be glad to have her 
come. Tell her she has nothing to dread from me.” 

“ Father,” said Margaret, in those low, even tones 
that seldom varied, “ I do not think of Stanford as a 
cowardly cur. He was swept into a strong current 
before his hand had grown firm on the tiller. I still 
believe in — your son.” 

But he was not listening to her. His eyes had fallen 
again upon Olivia’s letter. She was the first member 
of his family who had ever braved him. She had dared 
to show him the error of his ways, and he exalted her 
for it. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


203 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Mrs. Hermann-Damran had either greatly over- 
rated her daughter’s susceptibility or her lodger’s bale- 
ful fascinations. The two had come together without 
any resulting shock other than a broad stare of very 
natural surprise, when Miss Damran, becoming case- 
less, somewhat unexpectedly came home to find a 
handsome young man occupying her chair at the 
family board. 

In Mrs. Damran’s own sentimental young days sur- 
prise would have been followed by surrender, and the 
Doll’s Hospital would have been the theater of an 
inevitable emotional drama. 

In Miss Damran’s advanced young days men and 
matrimony had come to be considered incidents, not 
ends. When the true state of affairs dawned upon 
the little doll-doctor, her gratitude to Providence was 
excessive. 

“ You see, honey,” she said nervously, explaining 
the situation at the first possible moment, “ after your 
father took the poor young gentlemen’s gold watch, 
agreeing to let him board it out, we made an honest 
calculation that he was entitled to stay on two 
months.” 


204 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Harriet was arranging her hair before her mother’s 
bureau. She turned, with her mouth full of hairpins. 

“And he’s been here now? ” 

“ Going on to five weeks. But — if — you ” 

“ Oh, he don’t bother me any more than one of the 
big dolls in the closet. If you and pa can stand him 
dangling ’round ” 

“ Well, he don’t just exactly dangle. He was real 
sick the first week he was here, but now he’s learnin’ 
clocking under your pa, and he saves the old man a 
good many steps.” 

“ What’s he going to do when he’s boarded the watch 
out ? ” Harriet asked practically. 

“ That’s more than I can tell. It worries me some, 
too.” 

“ Does he get any letters ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Talk about his people ? ” 

“ Close-mouthed as an oyster.” 

“ Of course, he’s hiding from somebody. Don’t look 
like a hardened sinner, though.” 

Mrs. Damran dropped her voice discreetly. “ I lock 
the dolls and the spoons up every night, and bring 
your silver christening cup upstairs with me.” 

At which evidence of care-taking, Miss Damran had 
laughed so loudly and so long that the old clock- 
mender, smoking his after-dinner pipe downstairs in 
the shop, called up to know “what the joke was.” All 


AN OLD FOGY. 


205 


of which had taken place on Harriet’s first home-com- 
ing after Stanford had found refuge with the honest 
old people. Since then she had been home several 
times, and had come to take him very much as a mat- 
ter of course ; never, however, taking up another 
“ case ” without leaving words of warning behind. 

“Now, ma, I know you and I know pa. You look 
tolerably leathery on the outside, but both of you have 
got hearts as soft as dough. When that young man’s 
two months is out, you owe it to yourselves and you 
owe it to — me — to send him walking.” 

And Mr. and Mrs. Hermann-Damran said “ Of 
course ” in valorous concert. 

But before the two months were out, Harriet was 
back again. 

“ Only to take Sunday dinner with you,” she said, 
drawing a chair opposite to Stanford. “ I’ve got a case 
I’m very much interested in, and I’m afraid it’s going 
to be a tedious one. I’m going back to-night.” 

Mrs. Damran looked interested. Usually Harriet 
was rather well pleased with “ long ” cases. She did 
not like “ skipping about from pillar to post, every few 
days.” 

Stanford gave his undivided attention to his dinner. 
This strong, red-cheeked, independent young woman, 
who was making her own way in the world so success- 
fully, was always something of a trial to him. He felt 
rebuked in her presence. 


20 6 


AN OLD FOGY. 


K Man or woman ? ” Damran asked. Harriet’s move- 
ments always interested him. 

“ Neither,” said the nurse, enigmatically, and 
stopped long enough to butter a piece of bread with 
great deliberation. 

When she was quite sure of her audience, she pro- 
ceeded. 

“ A girl. One of the prettiest, gentlest little things 
in the world. Not more’n seventeen years old, by the 
looks of her.” 

“ What’s the matter with her ? ” 

“ A twisted ankle, and I’m afraid her back is hurt. 
If it is — poor little woman ! ” 

Her audience lapsed into a singularly unsympathetic 
attitude. 

This was the season of ice and snow and slippery 
pavements. Of course, people were slipping up all 
over New York. A great many ankles must be 
twisted and numberless backs hurt during the course 
of the winter in such a populous place. 

Mrs. Damran turned to her lodger with the formality 
entailed by not having any name to address him by : 

“ Wouldn’t you try a little bit of the stew now, 
sir?” 

The stew was in front of Harriet. She transferred 
some of it to Stanford’s plate without interrupting her 
narration. 

“ She’s a Salvation Army girl, and the way I came 


AN OLD FOGY. 


207 


to hear about her was through Margaret Robinson. 
You remember Margaret, mother ? She was in hos- 
pital the same time I was; but afterwards joined the 
Army.” 

“Well, I got a note from Margaret, yesterday morn- 
ing, asking me, if I didn’t have a case on hand, would 
I come down to her room on Bleecker Street to see her 
‘ mate,’ who had slipped up on the ice, and she didn’t 
know how bad she might be hurt. 

“ I always did like Margaret Robinson. There’s a 
heap of go in her. So, as I didn’t have anything on 
hand I went down to Bleeker Street to see her. I de- 
clare, if those Salvation Army girls don’t wear golden 
crowns in the next world it will be because there ain’t 
any more justice there than here.” 

“ Will you cut some more bread, please, daughter? ” 

Miss Damran seized the loaf and the bread-knife. 

“ Everything was as clean and nice as could be in 
Margaret’s room. She was sitting by the stove when 
I got there. She’d been crying, I think. On the bed 
was her friend. After I had examined her ankle, and 
made her more comfortable, I gave her something to 
put her to sleep. And when I was quite sure she was 
sound asleep I began to ask Margaret some of the 
questions I was dying to ask her about that girl, for 
she didn’t look like the ordinary run of Salvation 
girls. 

“And then Margaret up and told me as pitiful a 


208 


AN OLD FOGY. 


story as ever I heard. It seems that pretty little thing 
has got a rapscallion of a brother.” 

The bread was all sliced up now, and, lifting the 
wooden tray, she suddenly extended it across the 
table. 

“ Have a slice, sir? ” 

Stanford, glancing up at the unexpected attention, 
caught the full blaze of a searching look with which 
Miss Damran was fixing him. He returned it 
haughtily : 

“ Thank you — no.” 

“ And, woman-like,” the nurse placidly resumed, 
“ she loves him better than she does anything in the 
world. Margaret says she ain’t quite clear as to why 
the young man has cut, but she says that girl fancied 
she could find him by going down among the roughs 
and the toughs, and there she is. 

“ She says (Margaret, I mean), day before yesterday, 
about ten o’clock in the morning, she was going along 
Grand Street with her mate (they were on their way 
to hold a meeting), when the girl gave a sort of cry 
and darted down a cross-street like wild. She says, 
Margaret does, that after one or two turns she lost 
sight of her, and gave up trying to follow. She sup- 
posed she would turn up at the place of meeting ; but 
she was not worried about her when she didn’t, for, 
you know, those Army girls do their work wherever 
it comes to hand. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


209 


“ But she says when she got home and opened her 
door, she heard a groan that went to her heart. There 
sat the poor little thing all doubled up over the stove, 
crying with her swollen ankle. Margaret says all she 
would say, was, 'Oh, Margaret, Margaret, I’m sure I 
saw him, but I went so fast and forgot the ice, and a 
policeman had to bring me home/ ” 

“ Hasn’t she got any folks ? ” Mrs. Damran asked, 
not yet fathoming Harriet’s intense interest in a case 
that did not promise big pay. 

“Yes. But she says unless she’s going to be laid 
up for long, she’d rather not worry them. She’s a 
plucky little thing.” 

Stanford was conscious of being distinctly annoyed 
by this prolix story. Why should this young woman 
select the story of a Salvation Army girl, with a derelict 
brother, for their entertainment ? Doubtless there 
were many sisters of much finer sensibilities than any 
Army girl could possess, grieving for derelict brothers 
at that moment in that great wicked city. His own 
dear Meg and Ollie, for instance. He should have to 
leave the table even without Mrs. Damran’s most ex- 
cellent cup of coffee soon, if this story went on much 
longer. 

“ Margaret and I were sitting by the stove talking 
about the case. I said I’d rather have a doctor examine 
her, and, if there wasn’t anything but a sprained ankle 

in question, I’d go on with the case myself. But I 
14 


210 


AN OLD FOGY. 


didn’t like the way she complained of her back. Facing 
us when we sat by the stove was a table with a lamp 
on it. And over the table was hanging a picture. I 
got up and went to look at it, for, somehow or 
other, it struck me I’d seen the face before. When I 
got close to it, I was sure I’d seen that face, and I 
asked Margaret Robinson who it was. 

“ She looked at the bed, and came over to the table 
to whisper it. ‘ It’s him. The brother ! ’ ” 

Harriet had no longer cause to complain of the 
apathy of her audience. Mrs. Damran had forgotten 
to pour out the black coffee. Stanford was staring at 
her with wide eyes full of pain, while Hermann was 
gazing stupidly at his lodger with aroused curiosity at 
his appearance. 

“ What is your patient’s name? ” 

It came in a husky whisper from the boy’s parched 
throat. 

“ The same as your own, I guess,” said the nurse 
composedly. “ Burnett.” 

“ Olivia Burnett ? ” 

“ That’s the full of it.” 

“ My little sister ! My little Ollie ! ” 

It was a groan of anguish, wrung from a very full 
heart. He left the table hastily, and mounted the 
narrow flight of steps that led to his bedroom. They 
could hear him walking about restlessly. The floor 
over the dining-room creaked under his tread. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


2 1 1 


Miss Damran was flushed with success. Mrs. Dam- 
ran was pale from excitement. 

What manner of criminal might they not have been 
harboring ? 

Harriet divined the direction her vivid imagination 
was hurrying her mother. 

“ Margaret says she gathers he hasn’t done anything 
unforgivable, only he’s sort of timid and the father 
is one of those stern old men that make everything 
and everybody quake.” 

“ What’s your next step ? 

Damran’s eyes shone with visible admiration for his 
daughter’s detective abilities. 

“ Now I’m sure he’s him, I’m goingto tell him I want 
him to go down to Bleecker Street with me to see his 
sister. I’ll wait about an hour for him to pull himself 
together a little. He’s pretty well shaken up just now.” 

Hermann looked across the table at his wife. His 
wrinkled, kindly old face flushed. “ If it’s agreeable to 
your mother I’ll smoke up in your room this afternoon. 
I guess the smell of my pipe’ll sorter jar on him just 
now.” And Mrs. Damran said she thought it was a 
good idea. She and Harriet would come up as soon as 
they had “ washed up.” 

The washing of the dinner things proceeded silently 
for some moments. Then Mrs. Damran handed a plate 
across the dish-pan for Margaret to wipe, and asked 
softly, 


212 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Does she know it yet, you suppose ? ” 

“No. I thought best to make sure first. I told 
Maggie not to give her a hint even. I’m glad he’s 
walked his walk out. That floor does creak ridiculously, 
ma.” 

When they joined Mr. Damran in the front room up- 
stairs they fell to discussing some necessary repairs in 
the house. The short winter afternoon waned rapidly. 
The elevated trains roared past them with lamps alight. 
Her father was already drawing on his old beaver over- 
coat to make his rounds, when Harriet made a move to 
depart also. 

“ I wish, ma, you’d just step to his door and tell that 
young man I’d be glad to have him go with me to 
Bleecker Street. Or, stop, maybe he’d rather go by 
himself. It’s all one to me, so he goes.” She took out 
one of her business cards, and wrote Olivia’s address 
on it. “Tell him he’ll find her there, and I hope he 
won’t fail to go.” 

Mrs. Damran was gone but a minute or two. She 
returned with the card in her hand, her face as white 
as the pasteboard of which it was made. 

“He ain’t there! There ain’t nobody to give 
your card to ! His valise is gone. He’s cleared 
out.” 

“ The cowardly wretch ! The heartless scamp.” 

Harriet Damran’s strong face writhed with scorn. 
She turned from the glass where she had been pinning 


AN OLD FOGY. 21 3 

on her hat, and went quickly into her old bedroom. 
She returned with a folded piece of paper. 

“ I found this on the mantelpiece. It is addressed 
to father.” 

“ I don’t care if it is. Read it.” 

And Harriet obeyed. The note read thus : — 

“ Mr. Damran : — I have you and your wife to thank 
for uniform kindness. You have set me an example 
of sturdy independence and honorable uprightness 
under severe deprivations that may bring forth good 
fruit. 

“Yes, my name is Stanford Burnett, but, until I can 
make a record for myself which will enable me to go 
back to my family and demand oblivion of past short- 
comings, I propose to have nothing to do with them. 

“ Miss Damran would do well not to let my sister 
know of her discovery. I should also like her to com- 
municate with my mother about Olivia at once. I 
enclose the address.” 

That was all. 

“ Upon my word,” said Harriet, “ if that isn’t a high- 
handed document.” 

“Oh, I knew he weren’t any second-class tramp,” 
said Mrs. Damran, with a flash of pride in her ex- 
lodger’s spirited attitude, then, in a disengaged man- 
ner, “ I wish Hermann would come home. It’s rather 


214 


AN OtD FOGY. 


rough work for him, this cold weather, lighting so 
many lamps.” 

In point of fact, she wanted Hermann home so they 
could “talk it all over.” Really the halo of romance 
seemed settling about the Doll’s Hospital without any 
detriment to Harriet in her own person. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


215 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

PICKING her way cautiously over the icy pavements 
that stretched between the up-town factory, where the 
paper flowers were made which “ rivalled Flora’s finest 
products,” as Madame’s advertisement put it, and the 
down-town shop where they were sold, Margaret 
found herself moralizing and — quoting La Roche- 
foucauld. 

“ In recognition of her superior taste ” she had re- 
cently been promoted to the position of superintendent 
of the factory, at an increased salary. 

The resulting sense of satisfaction convinced her 
that there must be a plebeian strain in her blood. 
Otherwise she would have gone on loathing the busi- 
ness as she had at first. 

Were all her fine shrinkings and heroic resolutions 
just so many shams begotten of a life of ease and idle- 
ness? Or, did people simply get used to everything 
after the fashion of shorn lambs in tempered winds? 

Rochefoucauld said they did not. According to 
him, “ Philosophy finds no difficulty in triumphing 
over past and future ills — but, present ills triumph over 
her.” 


21 6 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Which Meg was quite sure was not the case with 
herself, for here she was picking her way over ice and 
brown slush, in muddy overshoes, and with damp pet- 
ticoats flapping about her ankles, and yet she was not 
actually unhappy. How very commonplace she must 
be. 

She knew why Rochefoucauld had come to her just 
then on the muddy streets. Only the night before, 
when her mother had pleaded with her father to take 
things more philosophically, he had flung that bit of 
French cynicism at her by way of answer. 

He had been down to the Bleecker Street house, to 
see Olivia, who was still housed with her sprained ankle, 
and he had taken with him a short note their mother 
had received from Stanford, hoping it would terminate 
the girl’s futile quest. 

Stanford’s note was almost insolent in its brevity, 
but Mrs. Burnett had bedewed it with happy tears of 
gratitude. He said : — 

“ Please say to my sister Olivia she need not look 
for me among the toughs nor in the slums. I am a 
worthless coward, but not a low dog.” 

That was every word — but he was alive ! And 
mother-hearts can find rich nourishment in such very 
dry crumbs of comfort. 

Ollie’s ideas concerning her work, however, had 


AN OLD FOGY. 2\J 

broadened miraculously. Or, as the Colonel wrathfully 
put it, when he came back defeated, 

“ Upon my word and honor, Mildred, that girl has 
come to look upon every Bowery tough as her brother! 
I suppose you will tell me that it is the inevitable ex- 
pansion of her sympathies, in face of the actual suffer- 
ing she witnesses. I tell you it is all infernal nonsense, 
begotten of the high-pressure life of this rushing city, 
which makes every babe and suckling think it must be 
up and doing. Rot ! ” 

It was then that Mrs. Burnett, seeing they were 
powerless to influence Olivia, had recommended phi- 
losophy by way of balm. And recalling the scene as 
she trudged shopward, Margaret was inclined to credit 
herself with having triumphed over present ills to a 
signal degree. 

She felt curiously aloof from everything and every- 
body that had not to do with the evolution of paper 
flowers. She was conscious of her own impersonal at- 
titude towards the world of wealth and fashion — that 
world where the Brooklyn Burnetts and the Websters, 
an d — and — the girl with the white boa lived and 
laughed. She was quite sure there was no morbid- 
ness in her soul — not a grain. She had never felt more 
affectionately towards Agnes than when she had re- 
fused to be her bridesmaid. Nor had she any quarrel 
with the world. It seemed a great many years ago 
that she had been a member of that Brooklyn house- 


2 1 8 


AN OLD FOGY. 


hold where the buzz of preparations for a great society 
event was now going on. And yet it was only one 
season. She supposed then she should have felt a 
superior sort of pity for any girl who had to spend 
eight hours a day twisting tissue-paper into shape, and 
walk home after work-hours in muddy overshoes and 
bedraggled skirt. But now that she was the working- 
girl, and wore those objectionable overshoes herself, 
the marvel had become a matter of course. 

It was all in the point of view, and her point of view 
had changed radically. The demand for readjusted 
social standards had been both violent and sudden, but 
the pain that had gone along with it was among the 
past ills philosophy had triumphed over. 

She had endured all there was to endure ; suffered 
until her capacities in that line were quite exhausted. 
Nothing could make her actually unhappy again. All 
of which was so much clear gain. Her philosophy was 
proof against every possible shock of future ill. 

She even accorded a benumbed acceptance to their 
mutilated family conditions. Ollie must live through 
her philanthropic craze. As for Stan, he was acting 
very badly just now, but she hoped for better things 
from him yet. 

To call a plant a “ climber ” was not to divest it of 
every claim to individual respect. It was merely to 
emphasize its abiding demand for a strong support of 
some kind in the early stages of its growth. The more 


AN OLD FOGY. 


219 


promising the climber, the more necessary a trust- 
worthy support at the outset. Your scrubby, stalky 
little earthlings could achieve their slight eminence 
without aid, and make a brave show of their com- 
monplace excellence early in life. 

Poor, dear Stanford had the latent capacity of a 
sturdy climber, but they had stupidly thrust him forth 
without any props. And because her voice had been 
lifted in favor of the great blunder, she repented, but 
she also hoped. Especially since that note came. She 
was glad Stanford was not recreant to all the family 
traditions. A man might be out-at-elbows, and yet 
not sink to the level of many a well-dressed cad. There 
was but one unpardonable sin in Margaret’s code, and 
Stanford had not committed it. It was — vulgarity ! 

She had reached a crossing of Fifth Avenue, and 
stood still in recognition of the impossible. She could 
not cross it. The avenue was a-roar and a-glitter. 
Where she had halted the maze of broughams cabs, 
hansoms, dingy stages, and bright beplumed sleighs 
seemed especially intricate and unthreadable. The 
swift current of wheeled menaces must surely grow 
quieter presently; but progress on foot among these 
shining-coated brutes, with their fur-muffled, indiffer- 
ent drivers, had its perils, and she did not care to 
invite them rashly. 

She found the passing show vaguely entertaining. 
The long, snowy driveway, stretching between double 


220 


AN OLD FOGY. 


rows of stately mansions, was black with a tangle of 
vehicles. Behind the great plate-glass windows of the 
houses Christmas wreaths, caught up with bright crim- 
son ribbons, still gave a touch of green to the wintry 
outlook. 

Threading the incessant roar of wheels and beat of 
iron-shod feet, the gay lilt of sleighbells rang cheer- 
fully. A shining cutter flashed past, with bright orange 
and black plumes nodding at its prow. A man’s face, 
tired and withered, showed haggardly above its envelop- 
ing furs. By his side sat a lady whose face was con- 
spicuously fat and red. Her eyes watered visibly 
in the keen, salt air. Margaret was not at all sure 
they were having a good time. She did not envy 
them. 

A great, broad, low-swung coach, drawn by a pair 
of sedate bay horses, which seemed conscious of 
the indignity put upon them in the frivolous dock 
ing of their tails, rolled cumbrously after the gay 
little cutter. The plated harness rattled and jingled 
emulously; the coachman’s florid cheeks shone redly 
among his sombre furs. The glass windows of the 
coach were securely closed. From behind them a sick 
girl cast swift, envious glances upon those who 
could breathe heaven’s pure, sweet air unchidden. Her 
handsome coach was a glass prison. 

In the wake of the sick girl’s coach, rolled a gorgeous 
yellow buck-board. It was loaded with laughing boys 


AN OLD FOGY. 


221 


and girls. Shining skates swung over their shoulders. 
What a good time they would have when they reached 
the frozen ponds in the park ! Tom had taken her once 
to see the skating by electric light. It was beautiful. 
Dear faithful old Tom. What good times he used to 
contrive for her. 

With a flash of crimson pompons and a joyous clash 
of bells, a glittering sleigh dashed into the avenue 
from a cross-street and abruptly halted. The driver 
recognizing, as she had done, that right of way had to 
be conquered. 

The beauty of its mettlesome black horses caught 
her instant attention. At home she had been an expe- 
rienced horsewoman. Everywhere she was an ardent 
lover of fine horse-flesh. 

These were superb, clean-limbed, small-eared, broad- 
browed, intelligent beasts, whose coats glistened in the 
bright sunshine. All of the appointments of the 
vehicle were beyond criticism. She glanced indiffer- 
ently at the occupants, paled, and, catching her breath 
with a quick gasp, drew her gauze veil quickly over her 
face. 

Quite needlessly. The driver saw nothing but the 
labyrinth of teams his horses were straining to plunge 
in among, and the other occupants saw only those who 
were pleasuring in like fashion with themselves. 

The driver was Edward Webster, and the other 
occupants were Kitty and Agnes Burnett, on the back 


222 


AN OLD FOGY. 


seat. And — on the driver’s seat — was a brown-eyed 
girl with a white boa twisted about her neck ! Mar- 
garet had seen her once before. 

Only a halt of a moment, and then, seeing his chance, 
Edward shook the reins. The black horses leaped 
forward, and the gay cavalcade was out of sight. 

As the horses plunged forward, a ripple of girlish 
laughter floated to her ears. It stung her like a whip- 
lash. There was a broad splash of mud on the front 
of her dress that had not been there before. She 
looked at it with hot eyes and shook it off with a laugh 
that had nothing in common with the laughter that 
had stung her so. 

The crossing was as perilous as it had been any time 
in the last hour. But, with that bitter little laugh 
still sounding strangely in her own ears, she glanced 
after the flying sleigh and darted recklessly in among 
the rolling wheels. 

Once on the other side, she pursued her walk as 
heedlessly as if her pathway had been strewn with 
roses and heart’s-ease rather than ice and thorns. 
She wondered why she had not discovered before how 
bitterly cold it was ! Her teeth were chattering. Her 
heart was benumbed. 

Poor Meg ! La Rochefoucauld was vindicated. A 
wave of insurgent misery swept over her. 

Present ills had triumphed ! 

Too thoroughly sound of mind and body to mope 


AN OLD FOGY. 223 

over any dispensation of God or man, Ned Webster 
was leading his life placidly and wholesomely. 

That dismal visit to Margaret in her home had been 
discouraging. He recognized that she had purposely 
intensified his discomfort and her own. There was a 
touch of bravado about it all that had struck him 
then as unworthy of her. He should not place either 
her or himself under such a fire a second time. 

If things were ever to adjust themselves they must 
do so simply and naturally. He was no novel hero, to 
be inventing tragic situations and romantic endings to 
his love-affairs. Life looked fair enough in its every- 
day aspect. His course under Judge Wayne would 
soon culminate in a law-office and shingle of his own. 
There were many pleasant things to be enjoyed in 
spite of certain contradictions and crosses. Come 
what might, he was not going to whimper about the 
affair. What a resolute soul that soft little body en- 
cased. If he had cared to risk a snubbing, he would 
have asked her to try the ice with him. 

These thoughts came to him some days after that 
sleigh ride. 

He had been skating. Skated until every drop of 
blood in his strong young body was tingling with fresh 
vigor. With his skates swung over his arm, he was 
tramping at a great rate through the park to reach a 
side-gate on the avenue. 

Stopping to light a cigar, he heard two voices near 


224 


AN OLD FOGY. 


him. One gruffly dictatorial, the other sullenly 
defiant. He had stopped under an electric light. 
The men were walking towards him. “ Some poor 
devil in the grip of the police,” he said, and, as he 
flung away his match, they had come abreast of him, 
where the full blaze of the lamp fell upon both faces. 
Ned looked at them. They offered a sharp contrast 
in point of size. The smaller man was speaking. 

“ You are a trifle over-zealous, Mr. Police. If I am 

under the influence of liquor I suppose I am legally 

*••• 

your game. But I fancy, of the two, I am the soberer.” 
“Shoot your chin-music, I’ve had enough of it.” 

At the first sound of the slow, lazy drawl in which the 
first man had spoken, Webster started with surprise, 
and, looking sharply at the young man, his suspicions 
were strengthened. 

If that languid, cultured voice and those big flash- 
ing eyes did not belong to young Burnett, he was very 
much mistaken. Tom had told him about the boy’s 
scrape. 

He hurried after the two men, who had been walk- 
ing steadily away from him. He laid his hand quietly 
on the arm farthest from the policeman. 

“ Excuse me if I am mistaken, but isn’t this Mr. 
Stanford Burnett ? ” 

He felt the slender arm tremble under his touch, and 
he knew he was right. 

“ This is a night of surprises,” said Stanford, laughing 


AN OLD FOGY. 


225 


nervously. “ I had just declined giving my friend on 
the left my name, and here an unknown party proclaims 
it aloud.” 

“ Ned Webster. Not exactly an unknown party. I 
.am your — cousin’s friend.” 

The policeman had fallen in the rear. If the big- 
eyed chappie had found a friend, he was relieved of 
all responsibility for him. 

“ And yours,” Ned continued, drawing the young 
fellow’s hand within his arm, “ if you will let me be.” 

They had reached the Fifty-ninth Street plaza by 
this time, and Webster was concerned at finding that 
the trembling of Stanford’s arm did not cease. It was 
not mere nervousness at being suddenly addressed in 
the semi-darkness of the park. They were under a full 
blaze of light now, and casting a swift look sidewise at 
his companion, he noticed the deathly pallor of his 
face. 

“ I am afraid you lingered in that frozen park too 
long. Your Southern blood is not up to the mark.” 

Stanford laughed mirthlessly. 

“ I have lingered there since six o’clock this morning, 
and if I had not coughed that idiot would never have 
found me.” 

“Since six o’clock this morning!” Ned dropped 
his arm and faced him stormily. “ Then — why — man 
alive, this is no time for mincing matters ! — have you 
eaten nothing all day?” 


226 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ No.” 

“ But why ? ” 

The answer came with reckless levity. “ Because I 
had nothing to eat. Having devoured my gold watch, 
scarf-pin and cuff-buttons, and not having yet devel- 
oped the goat’s capacity for tin cans, I was just trying 
to decide the ethics of my case when that betraying 
cough overtook me. The great to be, or not to be — 
you know.” 

“ Boy, boy, don’t. It hurts me all through to hear 
you talk so. By God, it does, to think of what you 
have gone through with. You — Margaret’s brother. 
My fellow-creature. Gad, but this is a seamy old 
world if you happen to strike it on the wrong side.” 

It was Stanford’s turn now to peer curiously. He 
pushed his hat back from his white, thin forehead, and 
fastened his burning eyes on Ned’s handsome face with 
growing wonder. 

“ Webster ! ” his voice was very soft, and, just then 
it had the sweet cadences of Margaret’s own “ there are 
tears in your eyes ! Are you shedding them for me ? ” 

Ned dashed his hand across his eyes tempestuously. 
“ It is this infernal wind. I have been skating over 
two hours. Come, old fellow, I am ravening. It’s just 
a step across the plaza.” 

And drawing the boy’s hand under his arm again, 
with an almost caressing touch, he turned towards the 
nearest of many accessible feeding-places. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


227 


CHAPTER XIX. 

The night was far spent when Webster, who had 
been sitting before the fire in his own room in relaxed 
luxury which spread him pretty well over space, 
gathered himself together with a frank yawn and pro- 
posed “ beds ” to Stanford. 

They stood for a moment, side by side on the hearth- 
rug, in a silence made eloquent by all that had gone 
before, the physical contrast of a David and Goliath 
between them. 

Stanford was wondering why he should be accept- 
ing food and shelter at the hands of an almost entire 
stranger, without any particular sense of shame. Was 
it the callousness of mendicancy? 

Edward was silently questioning where he would 
have brought up if he had been handled as roughly by 
Fate as that boy had. He was quite sure he would 
have become a whisky fiend. 

The two men had come together to the big house on 
Madison Avenue, immediately after dining, and, let- 
ting himself in with a night-key, Ned had taken his 
guest straight upstairs to his own handsome suite of 
rooms on the third floor. 


228 


AN OLD FOGY. 


He would report to his mother later on. Perhaps 
not at all that evening. 

Mrs. Webster had often been heard to say, in a 
phraseology all her own she, “ never lost much sleep 
on account of Edward, or, for that matter, any other 
account, since he’d got through whooping-cough and 
teeth, though indeed clam-fritters were very disturb- 
ing, for she always knew that though he might leave 
a lot of muck in the downstairs hall for the maids to 
clean up in the way of mud, or snow-tracks, she could 
always be sure that he had carried a clean soul up- 
stairs ; and after all was said and done, souls were much 
more important things than soles.” 

There were a few things more the great clean-souled 
fellow was thinking he should like to say to “ little 
Burnett ” before dismissing him to the bed in the al- 
cove that always stood hospitably ready for “ any 
fellow ” he chose to bring home at night. 

A sudden shyness locked his firm, square jaws. 
What he wanted to say would bring Margaret into 
the situation. And Margaret was an uncertain quantity 
just now. He should not like the boy to think he was 
using him as a cat’s paw to draw a coveted chestnut 
from the fire. Which remarkable simile struck him so 
forcibly that he had much ado, not to laugh aloud at it. 
Virtually he had called Margaret Burnett a — chestnut ! 
He flung his hesitation aside with a gesture of con- 


AN OLD FOGY. 229 

tempt, and threw an arm over his guest’s shoulder 
with caressing freedom. 

“ Burnett, I’ve been trying for the last five minutes 
to muster the courage to say something to you. You 
won’t flinch if I say it clumsily, will you, old fellow ? ” 

Stanford lifted his eyes with a smile that lent him 
a wonderful likeness to Meg. It set Ned’s loyal heart 
to thumping against his ribs. 

“ I don’t think you could do anything very clumsily, 
Mr. Webster.” 

“ The deuce you don’t ! ” 

“ No, I was just answering a question I had asked 
myself. I think it is the manner of doing what you 
have done to-night that has taken nearly all the sting 
out of it.” 

“ Where do you keep your taffy ? It is so very 
fresh. What I wanted to say, was this : — It is not my 
fault that I haven’t been your brother in the eyes of 
the law for a good many months, now, and I want you 
to let me be one de facto.” 

“ Poor old Meg,” said Stanford softly. “ She has 
been to father and mother what I should have been — 
a strong prop in their hour of need.” 

“What you will be,” said Edward, with a grave, 
sweet smile. 

With the cool incisive judgment, which, in Judge 
Wayne’s estimate, gave such brilliant promise for his 
future as a lawyer, Edward had formed his own opinion 


230 


AN OLD FOGY. 


of his guest’s possibilities, unconsciously following 
Margaret’s own line of reasoning. 

“ Nothing low or vicious about him. Wants back- 
bone and a friend to stand shoulder to shoulder with 
him until he has caught step.” He broke the silence 
abruptly. 

“ I say, Burnett, did you ever try to walk on 
stilts? ” 

“ No.” 

“ No ? I am surprised. It is a most exhilarating 
experience — after you get used to the things. But 
a most infernally discouraging one at the outset.” 

“Yes?” Stanford drawled absently. He was at a 
loss to understand this sudden digression. 

“ Decidedly. Risky and jerky, you know. One 
has to be very circumspect at the mount. Worse 
than wheeling, any day. A fellow has to keep his eyes 
open and his head level. If he don’t, a tumble is 
inevitable.” 

Little Burnett smiled bitterly. 

“ I think I could manage the tumble without any 
difficulty. It would be in my line.” 

“ Oh, come, now, none of that. I am a foe to look- 
ing backward. Think Lot’s wife got just what she 
deserved. We are dealing in futures to-night. But, 
this much I will say, along that line : — If, at your time 
of life, with your limited experience of the headiness 
of New York life — it’s like strong wine, don’t you 


AN OLD FOGY. 23 1 

know — I had been turned over to a lot of fellows like 
Gilchrist and Bowen — I know them both — I would 
have been in the gutter before a year ran out.” 

Stanford shook his head in negation. 

“ Shake not thy curly locks at me. I know myself, 
which is about my only compliance with Scriptural 
injunction. But I have been so padded about, for 
fear of bruises, and had my pockets so well stuffed 
with money I never earned a dollar of, and been so 
coddled and sheltered, that my natural viciousness 
has had no show whatever. The devil himself would 
have had no chance for deviltry in my case. 
But, what I was going to say, to get back to our 
stilts, was this : Like a good many other rash little 
boys, you tried to mount your stilts at a dead run, and 
they slipped from under you, giving you an ugly 
tumble but no vital injuries. So all you have to do 
is to pick yourself up, brush the dust off, and make a 
fresh start. The higher the stilts, the more need for 
caution at the mount. The Gotham stilt is about the 
tallest brand in the market.” 

“ I shall mount them — ultimately.” 

“ Bravo ! that is the way to shake the dust off. 
And really, your coming to hand, just as I was about 
to leave the old Judge’s office, will be quite a godsend 
to him. He needs some one, and the money means a 
good deal to him. He has a large family, and, you 
see, your stepping in just as I step out fits in splendidly. 


232 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Really, if I had manufactured the situation to order, 
it could not have filled all requirements better. And 
how long is it to be our secret? I’m not good at 
holding back good news.” 

“ I should hate to disappoint them again,” said the 
boy wearily. 

“ If you did, I think I could wring your neck with 
my own hands,” said Edward with sudden savagery, 
at which he laughed himself the next moment. “ But 
you are not going to do anything of the sort. You 
are pretty well fagged to-night, and the hill you’ve 
got to climb looks steep and rugged. Go to bed, 
Burnett, and don’t dare to think another thought after 
you get between the sheets.” 

But sleep does not always come at command. Dark- 
ness and silence had prevailed for half an hour when 
Ned’s voice reached the alcove. 

“ I say, Burnett, how would ‘ Webster and Burnett’ 
look in print. ’ ” 

“ On what?” 

Ned laughed. 

“ Oh — on — anything. I used to scribble it out on 
cards, with churches and dates and a lot of other non- 
sense. But, just then, I was thinking of it as a law firm. 
I mean, of course, after you’ve served your four years 
under the old Judge.” 

“ Now you are dealing in futures. Perhaps Judge 
Wayne will find me such an ass he won’t undertake me.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


233 


“ In that case I’ll take you into partnership imme- 
diately. Two asses would make a better law firm than 
one ass/’ 

At which they both laughed. Stanford wondered 
if he found it easy to laugh simply because his body 
was warmed and his stomach was full. What a ground- 
ling he was ! He would like to have Ned’s view of the 
subject.” 

“ Mr. Webster!” 

“ Well?” 

“ Asleep ? ” 

“ Manifestly.” 

“ I should like to ask you one more question before 
you drop off.” 

“ Well ?” 

“ How can one man restore another man’s self-respect 
to him ? ” 

“ Can’t.” 

“ Oh, yes, but he can. You have done it to-night. 
I should not like to think my heart is so light just 
because my stomach is full.” 

“ Well, sometimes, you see,” said Ned judicially, “a 
man thinks he has lost a thing when it is only misplaced. 
It is a very common experience with both sexes. My 
revered mother is always crying out that her spectacles 
are lost, when all the time they are close at hand on 
the top of her head. That’s about the way of it with 
your lost self-respect. When your stilts slipped from 


234 


AN OLD FOGY. 


under you, your self-respect got a pretty severe jostling, 
and before you had picked yourself up to look for it, 
you concluded it was lost forever. Which shows what 
an exceedingly ill-balanced young cub you are, Bur- 
nett.” 

“ I wish you would call me some more pet names like 
that. It recalls some very tender recollections of my 
black mammy, who kept an especially rough wash-cloth 
for my face when I had used naughty words. She 
used to be of opinion that ordinary soap and sponges 
wouldn’t do for such an extraordinary imp as I could 
be on occasion ; so, whenever I offended in my speech, 
she used to make me tremble with her awful threat : 
‘ Now, then, I gwine to blackguard you wid the rough- 
est piece er crash I kin find.’ ” 

“ Salutary but painful,” said Ned sleepily. After 
which silence remained unbroken. 

The heaviest stone Webster had rolled away from 
the boy’s sepulchred hopes was the belief that his 
name had been emblazoned publicly as an embezzler. 

“ So long as nobody knew, he could still hold up his 
head.” 

After all, the Spartan idea of virtue is much in vogue. 
The crime consists chiefly in being found out. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


235 


CHAPTER XX. 

JUST about that time, Mrs. Catherine Loyd found 
occasion to write one of her rare letters to Colonel 
Ethbert. She ended it with some items about Miss 
Winston and Burnett’s Hollow : 

“ They tell me that Marcella Winston is making the 
old place over brand-new, and that it is her intention 
to make a show place of it. She has taken a desperate 
fancy to the Hollow. Why not ? She has ideas and 
the money to execute them with. I don’t know which 
is the sorrier plight, to have money and no ideas, or 
ideas and no money. Luckily for the old homestead, 
Marcella has both. 

“ I wish you and Mildred could know her. She is 
a thoroughly admirable woman. Well balanced, practi- 
cal, lovable, even at this late day, she makes me regret 
that her and our father’s plans for a matrimonial alliance 
between the families fell through. The Burnett family 
would have been the gainers, vastly. 

“ Marcella expects to move over from her own house, 
her old home, rather, on or about the first of April. 
I have promised to take dinner with her on the day 
of installation. 


236 AN OLD FOGY. 

“ Mildred will be glad to hear that she has had the 
garden and the orchard thoroughly overhauled. In a 
note I had from her yesterday, she says the crocuses 
and the hyacinths are full of buds.” 

And while Mrs. Loyd was chronicling her acts, Miss 
Winston was slowly covering the short distance 
between the home of her birth and the home of her 
selection, on the big brown horse that was getting to 
be one of the familiar neighborhood sights. The tall 
lady and the big horse made a conspicuously hand- 
some picture between them. 

It was early in March, and the peach and apple-trees 
were blossoming very indiscreetly, encouraged by the 
deceptive mildness of a very warm February. Burnett’s 
Hollow, as she advanced towards it from the Orchard 
side, lay enwrapped in soft clouds of pink and white 
blossoms. 

“ Very pretty, but premature,” said Miss Winston, 
frowning in view of the certainty that “ a March 
freeze,” would catch the early fruit. 

Straight rows of locust-trees outlined the boundary 
between field and orchard. Already their snowy 
cornucopias were flinging incense to the breeze. 

There were a great many more locust-trees about 
the premises than Miss Winston approved of. But 
the sentiment of the situation was getting in- 
extricably mixed up with her practical decisions. 
She had gotten into the habit of putting Mrs. Ethbert 


AN OLD FOGY. 237 

in position of umpire when any innovation was sug- 
gested. 

She was quite sure Mrs. Ethbert would hate to have 
those locusts thinned out. So the locusts were 
spared. 

The balmy air invited her to loiter. The bluest 
of skies, spread cloudless, over her head. As far 
as her sad, earnest eyes could glance were great 
fields, where the rich brown mould was falling away in 
loamy flakes from the shining blades of the plough. 
It was all her own. She had ridden through the fields 
where the sowers were scattering golden grains of corn 
in the open furrows. Myriad blackbirds swarmed 
and chattered in their wake, gleaning as they passed. 

Before very long, green spears would pierce the 
earthen crust, and the richness of the harvest would 
follow fast. All her own. Through the barbed-wires 
of the almost invisible fences that begirt the fields, she 
could see the black-and-white cattle grazing in sleek 
contentment, among the tall cane. All her own. 
Behind her lay “ the Winston tract,” before her 
“ the old Burnett place.” Both her own. 

His mistress seemed so very indifferent to getting 
anywhere, that the big horse, from a leisurely walk 
made a deliberate halt, and fell to biting off the tender 
sassafras shoots that grew thick and succulent about the 
narrow bridle-path. 

Marcella did not object. From the crest of Sassa- 


238 


AN OLD FOGY. 


fras Ridge both estates lay in full view. Uncon- 
sciously, she was halting on the very spot where, 
years before, the two men who had originally owned 
them had first expressed a longing for the union of 
those two fair plantations. 

Both men were gone. Personally, they were less 
than shadows to her. A shadow may have shape if 
not substance. Her father, and George Burnett’s father, 
were utterly effaced from the tablets of her memory. 

It was very ungrateful not to have a more vivid rec- 
ollection of the two men, who had rendered her life 
one of secure ease. But they would not come back to 
her. Gauged by the standards of an impoverished 
locality she was “ fabulously rich.” The knowledge 
that this gave her a commanding position among her 
scattered neighbors did not elate her. 

She had returned to America because she was lonely 
in a foreign land. She had returned to the plantation 
because she was lonely among the crowds of the 
American cities. 

In her own old home was her hired companion. 
When she moved over to Burnett’s Hollow, her 
hired companion, Alexis, the big brown horse under 
her, and her three St. Bernard dogs would all move 
with her. And, in the cavalcade, would go that haunt- 
ing spectre — Loneliness. 

It had hounded her from country to country. It 
had goaded her to recross the ocean after an absence 


AN OLD FOGY. 


239 


of a score of years. It sat beside her when she 
gazed into the blazing wood-fire, she loved to keep 
roaring. It laid down by her side at night. 

The neighbors and the neighbors’ wives had all called 
on the returned native promptly. One baby-ridden, 
servant-badgered lady congratulated her on the freedom 
from ties that enabled her to “ live her own life.” 

“ My own life ! ” She stretched out her arms with 
a gesture of inexpressible longing. “ Full coffers and 
empty arms. Fat fields and a starved soul.” 

Alexis terminated her reverie by starting again, as 
abruptly as he had halted. His patience or the sassa- 
fras shoots had given out. With creditable direct- 
ness of purpose he resumed his slow, easy amble, and 
pursued it until he reached the horse-block by the 
newly-painted rack at Burnett’s Hollow, where he 
stopped with the virtuous air of a horse who knew his 
own mind if his rider did not. 

By the time Marcella had .gathered her long riding- 
habit securely under her arm so as to have no impedi- 
menta to her inspection of the work going on, she had 
banished every vestige of sadness, and was nothing but 
the alert, intelligent business woman the workmen had 
all come to respect as much for her “ level-headedness” 
as for her liberal ideas of payment. 

Old Jonas, the head-gardener, met her with his 
shears in a state of shining readiness. 

Now, Missy, how ’bout that box-hedging ? I want 


240 


AN OLD FOGY. 


you to plant the stake and draw the line yourself 
That box is done growed out of all reason.” 

And, threading her way among the budding cro- 
cuses and hyacinths, she gave orders as to the exact 
height. The riotous box-bushes must be clipped down 
too. A pallid snowdrop, shivered in a wind-blown 
corner of the old garden. She gathered it and put 
it in her bosom. 

It pleased her to fancy that she had warmed and 
comforted the delicate, insensate thing. A hen came 
fussily clucking among the dead leaves under the box- 
hedging, followed by a straggling brood of chicks, as 
premature as the March peach-blossoms. One weakling 
fell by the wayside, gasping and discouraged. The 
tall lady stooped and gathered the feeble bit of yellow 
down into her large warm palm. Jonas looked at her 
critically. Such thrift was new to his experience. 

“ No use frettin’ over one sick chickin, Miss Marcelly. 
That fool hen stole her nes’ and brought out her brood 
too soon. They all gwine die. But you’ll see chick- 
ins ’nough and to spar. Trus’ me for that.” 

“ And I think, Jonas,” said Miss Winston, with grave 
inconsequence, “ when you have gotten the hedge to 
looking trim and even, you may as well mend that 
bean-arbor. We will plant hops there this spring.” 

Then she was needed at the house, and she walked 
away from him with the bit of yellow down still gath- 
ered against her bosom. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


241 


“ The gallery floor’ll have to come up, Miss Winston.” 
Her head carpenter paused, hammer and saw in hand, 
as she ascended the front steps. “No ’mount er patch- 
ing is going to do. Right here, in front of the door, 
the boards is that rotten I can pull them off with my 
hands.” 

He stooped to demonstrate the rottenness of the 
gallery floor immediately in front of the main en- 
trance, and, somewhat to his own surprise, his opinion 
was triumphantly vindicated. The broad plank came 
off at his touch. 

“ Hillo ! I didn’t quite expect that. That plank 
must a-been loosened at some time’r other.” 

“Try another,” said Miss Winston. “ If we need a 
new floor, we may as well know the worst at once.” 

The carpenter applied his strong touch to another 
plank. It yielded more easily than the first. 

“ Hi ! What’s up ? A war cave ? ” 

Miss Winston came forward eagerly. Three broad 
planks only had been removed, but they encompassed 
a very snug hiding-place, in which was stored com- 
pactly several guns, a small, flat, wooden box, and 
a large package done up securely in oiled paper. 

The “find ” created very little astonishment. 

“ Some mo’ of old Mr. Burnett’s war caves. Folks 
was put to it them days to hold on to thar own. Don’t 
look like anything but the guns was worth hidin’ ! ” 

“ Have the things carried over to my house by Jonas 
16 


242 


AN OLD FOGY. 


when he stops work,” said Miss Winston. “ They be- 
long to the Burnett family, and I will send them to Mrs. 
Loyd. Try some more planks.” 

More planks were essayed, but beyond the first 
three they were found less yielding. Seated on an un- 
opened keg of nails, the new mistress of Burnett Hollow 
then went into the estimates for a new flooring so 
intelligently that the carpenter informed his wife that 
night that “ Providence had made a good-sized mistake 
in putting Miss Marcelly Winston in petticoats. She 
had a head-piece that would a-fitted a President of these 
United States.” 

The lamps were lighted and the wood fire crackling 
merrily when Jonas knocked at the outer door and 
delivered the flat box and the oil-skin parcel. He also 
handed in a bit of yellow paper with an apology. 

“ This yer label were on the bundle, Missy, an’ I 
mus’ have rubbed it off with my sleeve.” 

Marcella took it and glanced at it indifferently. Then 
her eyes dilated and the color came into her cheeks in a 
full rich flood. On the bit of yellow paperwas written : 

“ This package sent to me by Winston for safe- 
keeping, on the day he started to the war. If anything 
should happen to him I am to open it. If anything 
happens to me, my sons are to see that his daughter 
gets the package and the flat box. Yankees reported 
coming up the river. 


“ R. H. Burnett.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


243 


Marcella turned and examined the oil-clothed pack- 
age. She could plainly see where the time-yellowed 
label had recently been rubbed off. 

Then the package and the flat box were hers. 
Given back to her by unseen hands from the other 
world. Those two men, whom she had pronounced 
that morning “ less than shadows,” had come back to 
her with a message ! 

She should like to be all alone when she gave ear 
to it. Miss Collins, the companion, always retired 
early. After she went there would be nothing living 
to spy upon her actions — nothing but a small callow 
thing, wrapped in a bit of costly fur, and basketed 
snugly in one corner of the great open fireplace. At 
long intervals it emitted a faint chirp of absolute 
satisfaction with its improved surroundings. And at 
last, with fingers that trembled slightly from nervous- 
ness, she applied herself to the many knots that 
secured the black oil-skin. That removed, a thin, flat 
tin box was revealed. It was locked. Who had the 
key ? 

On the mantelpiece in her dining-room was a large 
rusty ring with more than a score of keys on it. What 
laborious times those old Southern housekeepers must 
have had! A key for every lock! She examined 
every key on the ring. All too large and clumsy. 
The flat tin box seemed to grin at her baffled curiosity. 
Suspended from her own neck was a slender gold 


244 


AN OLD FOGY. 


chain that she had worn since early girlhood. At first 
its glittering charms had pleased her crude taste. 
There was a tiny gold tea-pot, and a pearl ball, and 
an alligator’s tooth, banded with gold. Among them 
a minute key ! When a better taste in the matter of 
jewelry had come to her, she had removed the charms 
but still worn the chain. 

Perhaps that minute shining key was the key to the 
situation ! She sped upstairs like an eager child to 
fetch it from her bureau drawers. It fitted the lock 
as only key and lock made for each other can fit. The 
tin box gave up the secrets it had guarded for more 
than a quarter of a century ! 

Apparently, the box held nothing but papers. The 
first one her hand rested upon was the mortgage — 
the mortgage on the Burnett place which she was 
supposed to have ignorantly destroyed when leaving 
her home — a little child. 

It was tied about with a piece of twine, which en- 
wrapped two copies of letters, written by her father 
to Ethbert and George Burnett’s father. 

One of them concerned the mortgage. It said : 

“ Should the war terminate disastrously, old friend, 
I do not want the terms of that mortgage to stand. 
Your indebtedness to me must be rearranged on a 
basis to suit the altered financial conditions — that is 
bare justice. If it were not for Marcella, I should say 
let it be wiped clean out, but I may be taken from 


AN OLD FOGY. 245 

her, and in lieu of other friends, money stands one in 
good stead. 

“ Should I live to come out of the war alive, we can 
settle all this between us. Should I die, and should 
you be left with your land only, I here express the 
wish that the mortgage be reduced by one half. 

“ Of course this is only projecting my desires into 
the distant future, and is not legally binding on any 
one.” 

Marcella read this letter over several times, then 
lifted her head with an inscrutable smile. 

“ So it is legally not binding on any one.” 

She wrapped the string about the mortgage and 
the letters again, taking careful note to make it go 
around just as often as it had been originally twined. 
Then she closed the box and locked it with the whis- 
pered words, 

“ I don’t think I could stand anything more to-night 
— of that sort.” 

She stood up and put the little shining key in a 
flower-vase on the high old-fashioned mantel-shelf. 

There was still the other box. That could not be 
full of papers, too. That letter she had just read 
seemed to have laid an injunction upon her. A most 
unwelcome injunction. Strange how attached she had 
become to the quaint old home on the other side of 
the ridge, with its straggling box hedges and tangle 
of sweetness in the old garden. It was hers ! 


246 


AN OLD FOGY. 


She lifted the square box and cut the strong twine 
with a pair of scissors Miss Collins had left on the 
table. 

Inside, on a bed of cotton, reposed two bottles of 
wine. There was some writing in her father’s hand 
on the labels. She lifted one and read : 

“ This bottle of champagne to be drunk on the day 
that victory perches on our banner.” 

Marcella took the scissors and with a strong, swift 
motion severed the wires about the cork. There was a 
loud report, and with a glad rush the long imprisoned 
liquid sprang to the lips of the bottle. She promptly 
turned the neck downward over the dancing fire flames. 

“ I pour a libation to the lost cause,” she said with 
sweet solemnity, and her eyes were full of a shadowy 
gloom. 

She lifted the other bottle from its resting-place. 
Over its label was written : 

“ This bottle of champagne to be drunk on the night 
of Marcella’s marriage.” 

Marcella smiled, and lifted the scissors yet again. 
A strong, swift turn of her round white wrist, and a 
second amber jet shot forth, foam-crowned. She turned 
the bottle neck downward over the flames. 

“ I pour this libation to the lost spouse.” 

And, when the last drop had gurgled through the 
narrow neck, she laid the empty bottle back in its nest 
with an audible laugh. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


247 


CHAPTER XXL 

The Bert Burnetts were in a state of loquacious ex- 
citement, in sharp contrast with their usual condition 
of subdued quiet. The regular evening routine was 
set aside entirely. 

Mrs. Burnetts right middle finger was decorated 
with a thimble, as usual, but she was not using it legiti- 
mately. She was beating an absent-minded tattoo with 
it on the edge of the table. 

Olivia was there. She was always there now, gener- 
ally on the hideous little carpet recliner. At the foot 
of the recliner, propped against the wall, was a plush- 
padded crutch. She had not told “them” yet, that 
she was always to walk with it. 

The crutch was accepted as a temporary evil. It 
was almost welcome, for it had forced her to come back 
to them. They were all very patient and tender with 
her, the Colonel most so of all. 

She knew she was always to be a shut-in. Perhaps, 
after all, her work was ordained in a different field. 
And if her crutch might prove to be Stanford’s staff, 
she would wear it gladly all the days of her life. Her 
bright young face had never been so absolutely serene. 


248 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Margaret was there, snipping a lot of red tissue-paper 
into meaningless fragments. She was quivering with 
a nervous energy that must find some vent. 

Open on the table lay the disturbing cause of their 
unusual activity. It had been brought fc>y a messenger- 
boy, who regarded the tiny sitting-room with a super- 
cilious conviction that “ them sorter folks didn’t often 
get special messages.” The note had, so to speak, first 
thrown the family on its beam ends with astonishment, 
and then laid upon them the inexorable demand for 
asocial concession. 

The Colonel, who could never solve any problem in a 
sitting posture, was weaving his way in and out of the 
“ crevices,” that was what Olivia called the contracted 
spaces between their furniture. He stopped abruptly 
in front of the table to read the note again ; knitting 
his brows and drawing in his under-lip portentously. 
When he had fnished it, he laid it down with uncalled- 
for vigor. 

“ We will go. We will all go.” 

He made the announcement with the aggressive self- 
assertion of a man who anticipates violent opposition. 
Not without reason. 

Mrs. Burnett dropped her thimble into her work- 
basket and folded her hands. 

“ But— Ethbert ” 

“ It is for Tom.” 

Margaret laid down her scissors and stopped snipping. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


249 


“Yes, father, but ” 

“It is for Tom.” 

Ollie laughed gayly. 

“ Now what line of argument is possible when a man 
turns into a parrot? And really, mamma, you and 
Meg ought to go. We haven’t treated the Brooklyn 
Burnetts at all nicely of late.” 

“We will all go. It is for Tom,” said the Colonel 
stubbornly. 

“ Everybody but I. I think my argument for stay- 
ing at home is the only sound one that has been ad- 
vanced.” Olivia touched the arm cushion of her crutch 
with one delicate finger. “Tell Kitty I’ve missed all 
the fun so far, but hope to be on hand for her wedding, 
' anyway. Why, the Brooklyn Burnetts are going off 
like fire-crackers.” 

The Colonel had resumed his tramp. “Plenty of 
time for messages, my dear. The thing does not come 
off until next Wednesday night.” 

“ Does he give her name ? I believe I am the only 
one who has not read that much-perused note.” 

The Colonel threw it into her lap. 

“ Thomas’s name is the only one of any importance 
to us. He is the best and most lovable boy in the uni- 
verse, but he does write a most infernal scrawl. Read 
it aloud, Ollie. I am sure the affectionate tone of it 
ought to melt your mother’s and sister’s hard hearts.” 

And Ollie read it aloud : — 


250 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ ‘ My dear Uncle Ethbert and Aunt Milly. This 
coming Wednesday afternoon, at five o’clock, I am to 
be married, in the most quiet way imaginable, to a 
young lady whom I hope you will all come to love 
very dearly 

Ollie looked up with laughing eyes — “ Why he does 
not give her name at all.” 

“ That is not a wedding-card,” said Meg, with au- 
thority. “ I think our refusal to go to Agnes’ wedding, 
made Tom pursue this personal plea plan. Go on, 
dear.” 

“ ‘ There is to be absolutely no wedding, because the 
young lady has recently lost a near relative. An aunt 
who has been a mother to her. As you know, how- 
ever, mother gives Mrs. Lyndhurst ’ ” 

“ Agnes,” the Colonel said explanatorily. 

“‘A reception next Wednesday night, the honor of 
which my wife and I are to share. Mother tells me 
she has sent cards to all of you, for her “at home,” 
but this is to make sure that the occasion shall be 
made complete for me by the presence of my dear 
Bert-Burnetts. I am selfish in this. I want Aunt 
Mildred to pass judgment on my taste in selecting a 
wife, and I want all of our friends to know the south- 
ern branch. If you treat me as badly as you treated 
Agnes, I shall make it a personal matter.’ ” 

Ollie laughed softly, as she slipped the note back in 
its envelope. 


AN OLD FOGY. 25 1 

“Dear old Tom. He sounds positively ferocious 
towards the last. Well ? ” 

“We will go,” the Colonel repeated emphatically. 
“We will all go. It is for Thomas.” 

So it was for Thomas that Mrs. Burnett shook 
out the folds of the black silk dress that had been 
packed at Burnett’s Hollow — wondering, as she 
spread it out on the bed, “if it would not look 
frightfully out of date among Emily’s fashionable 
guests.” 

Margaret had no pangs on the score of a suitable 
gown. There was the pretty one she had worn only 
once. It was to Mrs. Webster’s reception. 

Of course he would be there. And — she — the girl 
in the white boa. She should like to look her very 
best Wednesday night for Tom’s sake. 

When Wednesday evening came, she had a sweet 
foretaste of gratified vanity in Olivia’s ecstatic delight 
at her appearance. It brought a vivid color into her 
face. 

“ Meg, you are as beautiful as an angel, my dear, and 
I have just discovered you. Hitherto I have only 
known you as a working woman, you know. I am 
very proud of you. Father, take good care of tissue- 
paper Meg, and handle her as carefully as if she were 
one of her own fragile productions. I don’t want her 
to get to Aunt Emily’s with a single hair different. I 
want the entire Brooklyn contingent on its knees be- 


252 


AN OLD FOGY. 


fore my beautiful sister. Kiss me, Meg. Why, your 
eyes shine like great stars ! ” 

Blushing and laughing, Margaret stooped compli- 
antly to give the kiss. Olivia seized her face and held 
it close while she whispered vehemently, 

“ Oh, Meg, if he is there, don’t make a fool of your- 
self. There, now, I’ve driven all the pretty color from 
your cheeks.” 

Something had driven it away, for when Margaret 
turned to let her mother throw a wrap about her gleam- 
ing shoulders her face was very pale. 

The Colonel was wrestling with a pair of new gloves. 
It was getting late and the gloves proved refractory. 
This social departure had thrown him off his carefully 
adjusted balance. He tugged fiercely and used up his 
large stock of expletives recklessly. In his exaspera- 
tion he betrayed himself. 

“ It is those infernal car-brakes. My hands have 
outgrown such effete requirements as kid gloves. I 
think I shall go barehanded.” 

He looked up with a nervous smile to find his wife 
gazing at him tragically. 

“ Ethbert, what do you mean — by ‘ car-brakes ’ ? ” 

He laughed recklessly. 

“ That portion of the machinery, my dear, which en- 
ables the conductor to stop and start a surface car, for 
the convenience of the travelling public. How about 
my cravat? A little long-eared isn’t it?” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


253 

Margaret stood on tip-toe to improve the bow of his 
•white cravat. Mrs. Burnett was oblivious of such 
frivolities. 

“ Is that what you have been doing Ethbert ? Is your 
position with the car-company that of a conductor? ” 

The Colonel contracted his shaggy brows angrily. 
Then, melted by the pain in the sweet, high-bred face 
before him, he said gently : 

“ My tongue is a most unruly member, Milly. But 
we won’t spoil Tom’s evening for him by taking these 
sour faces into that grand assemblage, will we ? ” 

“ Father is right,” said Margaret, kissing his cheek. 
“We bread-winners cannot be choice about our grist- 
mills, when the mills are few and the grinders are so 
many, but to-night it is for Tom, all for Tom.” 

She wondered why she felt no nervous fluttering of 
the pulses, even when she reached the carpeted path- 
way across the sidewalk at the Burnetts’. The house 
was a blaze of light. Inside were the people she 
used to be “ one of.” After to-night, she would know 
them no more. 

It was not pleasant to have to be consciously screw- 
ing one’s courage up to a certain point. She had come 
there with a certain amount of carefully hoarded reso- 
lutions. It must carry her through the evening. But 
she should not willingly enter the torture-chamber of 
society ever again. 

The house looked very familiar. She had seen it 


254 


AN OLD FOGY. 


on gala occasions before. She knew just where to find 
the dressing-rooms. She conducted her mother up- 
stairs, to her own old bedroom. The Colonel waited 
for them among the palms at the foot of the broad 
stairway. 

She did not dally long. One glance into the large 
mirror satisfied her that, in all essentials, the pale- 
faced woman who looked back at her with such extreme 
gravity would be found presentable downstairs. How 
little she seemed to have in common with the girl 
who, only little more than a year before, had stood in 
the self-same spot, dressed in the self-same gown, and, 
with blushing cheeks, had questioned the mirror to 
know “ if he would find her lovely ? ” 

Of course he was^ downstairs now. They, the 
Bert Burnetts, were among the very late arrivals ! Of 
course she was there, too. The girl in the white boa. 
Not in a white boa, of course, to-night, but beautifully 
dressed, and, again of course, hanging happily on 
Edward Webster’s arm. 

She hoped she should not see them before she had 
paid her respects to the receiving parties. 

She was downstairs now, threading her way on her 
father s arm, through a laughing, chattering crowd of 
well-dressed people who made progress slow and 
difficult. 

How familiar it all was. How very much more at 
home she felt here than in the shop. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


255 


She knew she should find her host and hostess, 
grouped with the bridal couples, in the handsome bow- 
window of the back parlor. The banker’s red fore- 
head and rotund figure, conspicuous among the white 
draperies of the two brides, served as a landmark. 
With laborious dignity the Colonel convoyed his 
womankind towards it. 

Margaret’s hand was trembling on his arm. He 
hoped the heat of the room would not overpower her. 
He could never forgive a scene. 

They reached the bow-window. Banker Burnett 
wrung the Colonel’s hand with an effusiveness that 
suggested the return of the prodigal. Mrs. Burnett 
was saying the correct thing to her sister-in-law. She, 
Margaret, in a confusion that was increasing upon her 
at every second, was trying to say the correct thing to 
Agnes and her husband, but Tom had still to be con- 
gratulated, and that glimpse from the doorway must 
have been deluding. 

What was she, the white boa girl, doing on Tom’s 
arm, then and there ? 

She lifted her eyes with a physical effort. They 
met the kindly glance of a pair of frank brown 
eyes. She thought she detected the faintest flicker 
of surprise in them. It was the “ shadow of the 
shop.” 

Some one was speaking to her. She had no idea 
who it was. Was it Tom who was naming her ? Was 


AN OLD FOGY. 


256 

it the girl with the brown eyes was saying, “ I am glad 
to call you cousin ? ” 

She said nothing at all in reply. 

The chandeliers were waltzing. The bridal couples 
were multiplying into a host. She reached out for her 
father’s arm. It eluded her grasp. Some one took her 
hand quickly and drew it within an arm. She was 
conveyed swiftly and directly through the door that 
led from the back parlor into her uncle’s private 
study. 

There was fresh air there and no people. She drew 
a long breath of gratitude for peril averted. With 
reeling brain and closed eyes she had suffered herself 
to be drawn out of the crowd, with a restful sense of 
being cared for, thought for. 

She lay back for a moment, with closed eyes and 
throbbing pulses, in the banker’s big leather-chair, 
where her rescuer had placed her. Then she sat up 
resolutely. 

“ Thank you very much. I thought I was going to 
faint.” 

“ You looked pale. The rooms were crowded,” said 
a quietly composed voice. It was Edward Webster’s ! 


AN OLD FOGY. 


25; 


CHAPTER XXII. 

He had been standing in front of a book-case behind 
her chair, intently studying “ The Evolution of Man ” 
through its glass doors. He came forward now and 
stood with one hand resting on the cylinder desk by 
which she was sitting. 

She looked up at him with wide, startled eyes. She 
was very pale. Her gloved hands lay folded in her 
lap. He could see them fluttering like frightened 
white-winged birds. 

A grave smile of exceeding sweetness rested on his 
firm lips. 

“ I believe you were so busy fighting off that faint 
that you grasped the first arm offered without know- 
ing who it belonged to.” 

“ I did. But — thank you.” She lifted one hand to 
thrust back an intrusive lock of hair that had lost its 
way. “ But — I am so bewildered. I can’t understand 
it all.” 

“ What is the it that bewilders you ? ” 

“ My cousin’s marriage to his wife.” 

‘‘A very substantial, handsome it Mrs. Tom Burnett 
makes. Don’t you think so ? ” 


258 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Beautiful— but— I thought— you ” 

A soft glow came into Ned’s fine eyes. She was 
making things easier for him. Of the two he was 
very much more composed. He had the advantage on 
his side of having planned the campaign deliberately 
and at his leisure. 

“ May I sit down, Miss Burnett ? I have been wait- 
ing for an invitation, but it does not seem immi- 
nent.” 

She glanced at him appealingly. He grew serious 
immediately. 

“ Or, perhaps, you wish to be taken back ? ” 

“ No, no, no.” 

“ Three negatives make a denial. That is the way 
my grammar has it.” 

He brought a chair and placed it near the big leather 
one in which she was nestling with a strange sense of 
warmth and happiness in her chilled heart. 

“ But I thought ” she began again with puzzled 

insistence. 

“ That Tom might have told us a little something 
beforehand. So do I. He has been deucedly close- 
mouthed about the whole business. Intimate as I am 
with both parties, I never suspected it. I believe it 
was she who enjoined the secrecy. She has rather a 
troublesome household, and I suppose she was afraid 
they would make things difficult for her. You know 
I studied law under her father, Judge Wayne. I 


AN OLD FOGY. 259 

opened my own office three weeks ago. I believe the 
engagement was a very short one.”, 

“ Yes, but I thought ” 

There was that in her uplifted gaze that made him 
bold. He leaned forward and possessed himself of the 
small folded hands. 

“ You thought ? ” 

“ That she was to marry you.” 

“ And you got that erroneous impression?” 

“ From things that I heard and saw*” 

“ Things that you have heard, first, please. You 
will let me try my hand at cross-examination on you, 
won’t you ? My first client has yet to materialize.” 

“ Why — well, it was something Mrs. Webster said 
in the shop. Of course, you know I am a working 
woman now. Ollie calls me * tissue-paper Meg.’” 

He flinched as if from physical pain. 

“ And from what you saw, please ? ” 

“ I saw her sitting by you in a sleigh. Agnes and 
Kitty were on the back* seat. I was standing on a 
corner waiting to cross. You did not even see me. 
You were very busy with your horses and with the 
girl in the white boa. That is the only name I have 
had for her before to-night.” 

She closed her eyes with a sudden spasm of pain. 
Now that the brown-eyed girl was eliminated, what 
difference would it make? The situation was un- 
changed. She was more than ever needed at home. 


26 o 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Edward stooped, and, pressing his lips to the 
small trembling hands, he laid them reverently back 
on her lap. 

“ I took rather forcible possession of them just now. 
They belong to the only woman I have ever loved. I 
asked her once to be my wife. For good and sufficient 
reasons — as she chose to consider them — she has given 
me rather a bad twelve months. 

“ It is exactly a year ago to-night, Margaret, since I 
asked you, in my mother’s house, to be my wife. I 
now ask you again. But if you say 1 no ’ again for 
any cause, it will be final. I don’t propose to per- 
secute you. But, on the other hand, I don’t propose 
to spoil my own life by useless grasping for a prize 
withheld. 

“ I think such love as I offer you is entitled to be 
considered on its own merits, and not simply as to how 
it will fit into the exigencies of other people’s lives or 
circumstances. Either you love me, or you do not. If 
you will tell me that you do not, I will take you back 
to the crowd in yonder and relinquish you forever. 
If you cannot say so, I will maintain that your atti- 
tude towards me is unnatural and inexcusable.” 

It was rather a long speech, delivered in a somewhat 
masterful fashion. But he was of the opinion that her 
sense of family duties were being exaggerated, and her 
reasons for holding him aloof were not valid in his eyes. 

The trembling of her hands had communicated itself 


AN OLD FOGY. 


261 


to her whole body. She could have cried aloud for 
help in that critical moment. It was as if the watery of 
the river of life were lifted to her lips and yet she’dared 
not quaff them. 

“ Either she loved him or she did not ! ” As if 
every throb of her sorely-tried heart did not contain a 
silent cry of longing for his presence. His very voice 
was music in her ears. 

“ Will you come back to me, my love ? ” 

“ My poor father ” 

“ Shall find a tolerable son in me.” 

“ A son ! If only Stanford had been to him a son, 
instead of a living sorrow.” 

Edward’s conscience smote him remorsefully. 
Stanford’s vow of silence must soon be broken now. 
At first the boy had pleaded for it. He wanted to 
face his father with a surety of recovered respect be- 
fore any revelation at all should be made. And he, 
Edward, had consented, because he had wanted to ask 
Margaret once again to be his wife ; and he did not 
care to run the risk of being accepted from motives of 
gratitude. She did not know yet that he had put her 
brother securely upon his feet. She must come back 
to him because she loved him, or not at all. To-mor- 
row, whether she said “yes ” or “no,” the boy should 
make full confession. This blessed privacy could not 
be relied upon very much longer. 

She was opening and shutting her fan with nervous 


262 


AN OLD FOGY. 


fingers. He took it away from her and clasped it in 
his own long brown fingers. 

“ Will you come back to me, Margaret ? Of your 
own free will — unconditionally ? Will you trust me to 
understand all the difficulties that beset you? Will 
you come back to me, my dear, simply because you 
love me, and because, without each other, both of our 
lives will be sadly incomplete ? I want you very much, 
and I think I have been very patient.” 

She was looking at him through a mist. A noble 
gravity sat on his brow. It lent an unusual sternness 
to his young face. There was no doubting the deter- 
mination of his firmly-set lips. Her next words, what- 
ever they might be, would settle, forever, the question 
of that moment. 

There was no shadow of impatience in his eyes. He 
was simply waiting — waiting with the tense concentra- 
tion of a man who is prepared to meet any issue with- 
out flinching. Strains of music from the orchestra, 
hidden among the palms in the hall, floated faintly to 
their ears. On the other side of the study-door people 
were filling the flower-scented air with gay laughter 
and well-bred platitudes. The bridal couples were still 
listening to congratulations that had been offered in 
the same phraseology to ten thousand brides before. 
There was nothing alluring in it all to him — nothing 
new. The world — his world — all that he desired to 
call his very own — was sitting there before him, em- 


AN OLD FOGY. 


263 

bodied in a girlish form, so slight, so exquisitely 
moulded, that it looked like some fair white flower, 
all sweetness and purity. 

“ Marguerite ! My flower love ! ” 

He stretched out his hands to her. She leaned for- 
ward swiftly and laid her own in them. “ My love, my 
love, I cannot give you up ! ” 

The sternness of his face fled before the glad light of 
assurance. He stood up and drew her towards him 
with imperious tenderness. “ It seems as if I had been 
waiting for this minute all my life. Its fullness is com- 
plete. My love, my own, my Marguerite ! ’* 

“ Edward ” — she drew away from him to ask a ques- 
tion solemnly — “ did my cousin Thomas ever interfere 
with your plans — your desires ? ” 

“ Yes — once. Quite seriously.” 

“ When was that? ” 

“ When he refused to give me your address.” 

She drew a long sigh of absolute content. Then — 
“ Perhaps we had better go back to the others,” she 
said. 

The clock that had come all the way from Burnett’s 
Hollow was striking two when the three, tired, silent, 
and preoccupied, climbed the steep steps to the flat, 
which they entered with precautions against waking 
Olivia. 

The Colonel had spoken twice only since leaving his 
brother’s house ; once to say : — “ George was too infer- 


264 


AN OLD FOGY. 


nally cordial. I felt all the time as if he were patting 
me on the back.” The second time : — “ Odd that I 
should find in Thomas’s pretty wife the girl I lifted 
over the slush. I told Tom to-night. I ventured to 
say I’d had her in my arms before he had. We had 
quite a laugh over it. I am glad we went.” 

Their short excursions into polite society had done 
the old fogy good. 

Mrs. Burnett had spoken several times. Once to as- 
sure Margaret that “ some of Emily’s friends were 
quite shocked at her gown, she knew.” 

Meg herself had come home in a dream. Ollie must 
have been asleep for hours. She was glad to think she 
should not have to prattle to her to-night about the 
bride and the reception. She wanted all the rest of the 
night for a blissful silence, in which she could go over 
that scene in the study, word by word, look by look, 
joy for joy. “ The child ” was sitting bolt upright in 
bed, with blazing eyes and crimson cheeks. Margaret 
stared at her in alarm. 

“ Ollie, you are ill ! You have fever ! ” 

“ I am as well as you are, but dying for you to come 
home. Oh, Meg, he has been here, and he looks so 
proud and happy, and he has told me everything. He 
is to come back to see mother early in the morning, 
and then father. He said he could not keep away from 
us any longer.” 

“ He has been here! ” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


265 

“He” meant Edward to Margaret. Just then she 
was incapable of recognizing any other possible pos- 
sessor of the pronoun. “Why, how did he get here? 
What did he want ? ” 

“ He wanted to see me all by myself first, dear old 
chum. He knew all about the reception.” 

“ Is it Stan you are talking about ? ” 

“ Why, yes, of course. Who else ? ” 

And then, amid tears and smiles, sometimes waxing 
almost incoherent in her excitement, she gave Stand- 
ford’s story at second-hand, including all that Edward 
Webster had done for him and been to him. 

“ And, oh, Meg, Stan says he knows that Mr. Web- 
ster loves you yet.” 

“ So do I,” said Margaret, bending shining eyes on 
her. 

Olivia looked at her wisely. 

“ And he told you so to-night. I can see it in your 
eyes, I can hear it in your voice. I feel it in my own 
heart. Oh, what a wonderful night ! ” 

Margaret had turned away to place her roses in a 
glass of water. Ollie asked no word about the recep- 
tion. It, with its two radiant brides, were mere 
incidents in the great drama being enacted on her own 
little home-stage. 

“ We will talk to-morn5W, darling,” Margaret said, 
coming back roseless from the shaft-window. And 
Ollie had nodded her acquiescence sagely. 


266 


AN OLD FOGY. 


Words were only necessary when people had nothing 
to think about. 

An hour later, when Margaret thought she was 
quite asleep, the child lifted herself on one elbow to 
drop a kiss on her sister’s brow. 

“ Meg, my dear,” she said softly, “ I don’t suppose 
there ever was so happy a car-driver’s daughter in all 
the world as I am.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 


267 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Snow had been sifting from leaden skies the dull 
day through, softly, silently, relentlessly — blinding. 
And the Colonel had leisure to watch it and to philoso- 
phize over it, because he was again a “ man without a 
job.” 

That was how he had announced himself with grim 
facetiousness to his family a few weeks after the 
Burnett reception, and the family had to get off to 
itself before exchanging congratulations on the sub- 
ject. 

“ It is quite a sure thing,” Ollie said, wrinkling her 
brows sagely, “ that if that horrid car-business had 
continued much longer, we would all have had to move 
up to the stables, to save the dear his awful tramp 
home after work-hours.” 

“ I should have insisted upon his giving it up very 
soon anyhow,” said Margaret, “ and I am glad to 
escape a contention over it.” 

At which the three fell easily into a discussion of 
dry goods and — Edward. 

It was rather edifying to hear the Colonel’s account 
of his resignation. 


268 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ I don’t believe the Company gave me up with 
undue regret, although I did my best while in their 
service. I am afraid I am inefficient, Mildred.” 

“As a car-driver? Naturally.” With a flash of 
indignant pride. 

“ As almost anything in the line of manual labor, 
for which I have a high regard, but no aptitude. The 
conductor on my car called me a fool when I told him 
what I meant to do. But I really do not see what 
other course was open to me as a gentleman. It came 
to my ears that the man whose place I had secured, he 
having been taken ill, was again on the waiting-list, 
hanging around in hopes of some one else falling ill, I 
presume. The vipers again, you perceive, my dear. 
Each one struggling to get his head above the others. 
I made some inquiries about him, and, when I under- 
stood that he had three young children dependent 
upon his earnings, I immediately vacated in his favor. 
I hope my action meets with your approval, Mildred ? ” 

And Mrs. Ethbert discreetly modulated her rejoicing 
into bland approval. And so the Colonel had been 
“ loafing,” for over a month with a curious sense of 
returning to his old-time leisurely life, when that 
relentless snow-storm set in, burying the “ vase ” and 
the “ vipers ” under a spotless mantle of charity. 

The leafless trees in the public squares swung their 
bare black branches with dismal whistling in the sharp 
east winds; black-roofed vans rolled noiselessly by, 


AN OLD FOGY. 


269 

over the snow-carpeted ground, with half-frozen 
drivers and horses ; hard-pressed pedestrians scuttled 
by with muffled ears and frosted noses ; postmen, in 
inadequate jackets, and the worst of humors, swung 
past with full pouches, going their icy rounds with the 
inexorable punctuality of fate. It was a comfortless 
and an unhappy world. 

The Colonel spent a goodly portion of that snowy 
day standing at the window, making cynical mental 
comments on the passing show. He was in a silent and 
an uncheerful mood. 

Margaret and Olivia had taken refuge in the din- 
ing-room to “ talk things over.” Mrs. Burnett was 
sewing. It was the one resource that never failed 
her. Her wonderful stock of patience was on the wane. 

With Margaret’s brilliant prospects, and Stanford’s 
restoration to favor, her own spirits had made such a 
rebound, that the unlifted shadows on the Colonel’s 
brow were a sore vexation to her. She raised her 
voice : 

“ Stanford is looking remarkably well, don’t you 
think, Mr. Burnett ? ” she asked tentatively. 

“ Quite well.” 

“ He is perfectly devoted to Mr. Webster.” 

“ Naturally.” 

Her efforts to force his thoughts into a more cheer- 
ful direction could hardly be called successful. She 
changed her tactics. 


2 JO 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Ethbert, would you mind bringing your monosyl- 
lables to me in person ? It is dreadfully discouraging 
addressing one’s remark to the back buttons of a man’s 
coat, especially when the man’s back is so very ex- 
pressive. 

The Colonel turned and walked over to her table. 

“ And what does mine express?” 

“ Brooding discontent.” 

“Of which my soul is full.” 

He flung himself into the easy-chair near her, and 
ran his fingers nervously through his thick gray hair. 

“ We are in the middle of March. I was thinking, 
as I stood there, looking out over the snowed-under 
city, that the ploughs were all running at Burnett’s 
Hollow, and the peach-trees will soon be blossoming. 
I wonder if Miss Winston watches for the sprouting 
of the jonquils and hyacinths as you used to do.” 

“ Always at Burnett’s Hollow in spirit,” said Mrs. 
Burnett, lifting sad rebuking eyes to his moody face. 

“ Always. There is no other abiding-place for my 
soul, as long as it is hampered with this extremely 
incompetent body.” 

He leaned forward to possess himself of her scissors. 
The edges of his cuffs were frayed, so were the hems 
of his trousers. Snipping at derelict threads very 
frequently afforded him absented-minded occupation. 
He smiled wearily into his wife’s rebuking eyes. 

“ But it does no harm, Mildred, my dear. I am here 


AN OLD FOGY. 


2 7 


in the flesh, very fixedly here, and, as soon as I can 
get my bearings afresh, will look for another job. I 
do not find my services very eagerly demanded in this 
great competitive market.” 

“ I was not thinking of that, Ethbert. I am only 
too glad something came between you and that horrid 
car-business. I think you hold yourself altogether too 
cheaply. Men take you at your own valuation. You 
can afford to be more fastidious, when Margaret is 
married and Stanford firmly established in business.” 

“ By sitting down to loaf on them ! ” 

“Oh, you know I meant nothing of the sort,” said 
Mrs. Burnett, with unusual petulance. 

Having skilfully restored his cuffs and trouser-legs 
to a semblance of integrity, the Colonel replaced the 
scissors on the table and leaned back in his chair, with 
his ten finger-tips neatly fitted to each other. 

“ One of the horses in my car was affected curiously 
the other day,” he said abruptly. “ If it had not been 
for its harness-mate, it would inevitably have fallen by 
the way. Every block or two, it would be seized with 
violent trembling, and fling its head about in an aim- 
less fashion, with every sign of great suffering.” 

“ Blind staggers,” said Mrs. Ethbert practically. 

Her preference would have led her along other con- 
versational lines than car-horses and their maladies, 
but she was ready to welcome any subject as a relief 
after the moody silence of the last few hours. 


272 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ So I should have pronounced it among my own 
brutes,” said the Colonel, with a lofty reminiscent note 
in his voice, “and, of course, I should have known just 
what remedies to suggest, but, as they would have been 
inaccessible, I left the matter to the conductor, who 
rubbed snow over the brows and eyes of the suffering 
beast.” 

“And did that cure him?” 

“ Cure him ! Oh, no. No one expected to cure him. 
It was simply an expedient to keep him on his feet 
until the stable was reached. But he dropped in har- 
ness.” 

“ Oh,” said Mrs. Burnett with vague sympathy. 

“ In point of fact, she was going over, in retrospect, 
that morning’s talk with Stanford, and in prospect, 
one with Edward Webster, in which many details 
of the wedding, that was to take place early in April, 
were to be finally settled.” 

“Yes,” said the Colonel, leaning forward to con- 
template his improved trouser-ends, “ but, fortunately, 
another car was just behind us and we took a horse 
from that one, so as not to be stopped.” 

“ But what did that one do ? ” 

“ Took a horse from its rear neighbor, and so on 
until the hindmost one was reached.” 

“And what became of it?” 

“ I have always heard that the devil takes the hind- 
most man. On that occasion I did not wait to see. I 


AN OLD FOGY. 273 

proceeded, and my passengers suffered only a moment- 
ary inconvenience.” 

“ That was good,” said Mrs. Ethbert, by way of hold- 
ing up her end of a conversation totally lacking in flavor. 

“ Yes, that was good. Very good. It was an old 
horse.” 

“ Then it had no business being in harness. It 
ought to be exempt. Turned out to graze. Surely 
plenty of young ones are obtainable.” 

“ Plenty ! ” 

There was such a bitter ring in his voice that Mrs. 
Burnett looked up in surprise. The Colonel laughed. 
It was only a different expression of bitterness. 

“Can’t you see the parallel, Mildred?” 

“ Between what ? ” 

“ Myself and the old horse that failed to reach any 
goal ? ” 

“ Ethbert, you certainly are in a trying mood to- 
day.” 

“ No, only in a philosophical one. It is well for a 
man to recognize his own limitations. I have made a 
careful study of mine since entering this field. A very 
full one. The race-course, to change the figure slightly, 
has many entries. Strong, lusty, young. Our chil- 
dren have borne the brunt of this industrial conflict 
better than I have. They had youth on their side. 
The world looks with favor on the coming men and 

women. I am glad our children have worn the yokes 
18 


274 


AN OLD FOGY. 


in their youth. I am rather proud of our trio, Mildred. 
Stanford started in with rather too full a supply of 
steam — but our daughters are noble specimens.” 

“ They have had the priceless support of your pre- 
cept and your example.” 

“ My example ! ” with infinite scorn. 

Mrs. Burnett put down her work, and going over to 
him, seated herself on the arm of his chair in the old 
familiar posture. He clasped his arm around her 
waist. A waist still as round and shapely as a girl’s. 

“ Not my example, Mildred, my love. The horizon 
is brightening for our children. For this I thank the 
Giver of every good thing. As for me — I have flinched 
under fire, and, if it were not for you, my dear-beloved 
yoke-mate, I should not be sorry to receive my dis- 
charge.” 

She bent forward and sealed his complaining lips 
with a kiss. 

“ Courage,” she said softly. “ The road has been 
rough, I know, and the waiting weary, but surely this 
sad old world of ours has not such a superfluity of 
good men and true that it can afford to relegate them 
for long to its rubbish heaps. Surely there must be 
some demand for high endeavor and clean-dealing left. 
Ethbert, my own, there are some failures grander than 
any successes. If you have missed the mark as a 
pronounced financial record-maker, you have held fast 
by the loftier ideals that make for clean living and 


AN OLD FOGY. 


275 

serene dying. I would rather have you just as you 
are, dear,” with a little hysterical laugh, “ frayed cuffs 
and all, than see you rolling up your millions by ques- 
tionable methods.” 

All the acerbity was gone out of his voice when the 
Colonel spoke again. It was only to say, with exceed- 
ing gentleness : — 

“ Thank you, my dear ! ” 

Then he closed his eyes once more and submitted 
peacefully to the soothing touch of her soft fingers 
threading his hair. 

The twitter of an electric bell roused them both from 
deep reverie. 

“ My dear, we are being punched.” 

That was the Colonel’s way of describing the mysteri- 
ous process of opening front doors in small flats. Mar- 
garet had already responded with an answering button, 
and, with a great clatter of boyish heels, a messenger- 
boy rapidly climbed the four flights of steps intervening. 

“ Burnett ? ” A telegram lay in his open book. 

“ Yes.” 

The Colonel was on his feet, fumbling nervously for 
his glasses. Telegrams were alarming things. Could 
anything have befallen Stanford since morning ? Was 
Catherine dead ? A thousand ominous possibilities 
presented themselves for consideration between the 
finding of his glasses and the signing of the book. 
He tore the flimsy envelope away, with an unsteady 


AN OLD FOGY. 


276 

hand, read the dispatch twice, and looked up blankly 
into three interested faces. 

“ Well, father ? ” 

Then he read it a third time. This time aloud. 

“ Can you come, without delay, to Burnett’s Hollow? 
Complications have arisen. Your presence indispen- 
sable to their adjustment.” Signed Marcella Winston. 

“ What do you suppose it means ? ” Olivia asked 
with a note of alarm. 

“ That she finds I owe her still more money, and 
wants to make sure of it.” 

“ Shall you go, Ethbert ? ” 

“ At once.” 

And the dull day closed in deep gloom for the Bert 
Burnetts. The Colonel’s solution of Miss Winston’s 
telegram was the only one that presented itself. 

“ She was a Shylock in petticoats,” Ollie had decided, 
before dismissing the subject of the telegram. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


2/7 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Colonel used the wires economically in an 
answering telegram : 

“ Leave for the South immediately ; ” — and left. 

He arranged it so that no one should know the exact 
moment of his arrival. He should be glad to slip 
quietly from the big stage-plank of the steamboat, and 
find his own way across fields to Burnett’s Hollow, 
avoiding Rosalia. Every one knew him there, and there 
would be so many friendly hands to shake, so many 
kindly questions to answer. He did not feel equal to 
the ordeal. They would all want to know what he was 
doing, and how he liked it up yonder. The Colonel 
was not gregarious. He never had hobnobbed sociably 
at the corner drug-stores in winter, or on the carriage- 
blocks in summer as was the local custom in Rosalia. 
His heart felt warmer towards his ex-countymen than 
when he had been one of them, but just now he was 
too heavy-hearted for social chatter. 

He would settle those mysterious complications with 
Miss Winston, pay a visit to Mrs. Loyd, and hasten 
back to Mildred and — the harness. 

The boat had dropped him, at his own request, on a 


278 


AN OLD FOGY. 


little promontory that led by well-remembered foot- 
paths, through the uncultivated woodlands, into the 
fields, near Dividing Ridge. 

His foot was upon his native soil the moment it left 
the stage-plank. He believed he would have known it 
with blindfolded eyes. The pugnent scent of cedar and 
sweet-gum filled his nostrils. He drew it in with long, 
glad inhalations. The river banks were fringed with 
the swamp-willows, that were already swinging their 
pale green bannerets to the breeze. He trod the fra- 
grant wild thyme under his feet with joyous impetu- 
osity. The young leaves of the cotton-wood rustled 
musically. Surely never was strip of woodland so 
lavish of sweet welcome. 

He took the low dividing fence between him and the 
fields with a boy’s leap. The chatter of blackbirds 
filled the broad, sunny spaces of the open. Double 
teams were turning up the rich black mould, and the 
birds were fluttering in the wake of the shining plough- 
share. There were worms to be secured. Just as he 
“ had pictured it all to Mildred, such a little while 
ago.” 

The ploughmen were singing at their work. Rude 
melodies, but very sweet to his home-sick ears. He 
stood still to listen. His sternly-set lips unbent in a 
genial smile. 

“ The rascals ! ” 

He knew those voices well. That was Wallace Basil, 


AN OLD FOGY. 


279 


a great scamp, but champion ploughman, and Duffy 
Doakes. So they had stuck by the old place and the 
old cabins ! ” 

He could have rushed across the fields to shake their 
horny hands, only he was on Miss Winston’s land 
now, and Basil and Duffy were her tenants. Perhaps 
he had better not. 

He had reached the Dividing Ridge now. On one 
side of it lay the old Winston place, on the other 
Burnett’s Hollow. Amity had always obtained be- 
tween the two estates. It was one estate now, all gone 
to swell the coffers of one wealthy young woman. He 
paused on the ridge to get himself well in hand for the 
coming interview. 

Of course Miss Winston was living at The Hollow 
now, or she would not have summoned him to meet 
her there. He should have preferred holding this inter- 
view at the Winston house. But, “ after all, what dif- 
ference did it make.” He was “ like a man standing 
under a douche trying to muster the courage to pull 
the string.” 

He could see the chimney stacks of the old house 
from where he stood on the highest knoll of the ridge. 

The house itself was veiled from view by the soft 
green opaqueness of the budding fruit-trees that inter- 
vened. 

He had known beforehand in just what stage of 
greenness he should find every nook and cranny of the 


280 


AN OLD FOGY. 


dear old place. How soothing it was after all the frozen 
whiteness he had left behind him. 

It was a little too early yet to hope for blossoming 
flowers, but how glad he would be to take a pressed 
jonquil or two back to Mildred. With Miss Winston’s 
permission, of course. 

The jonquils were Miss Winston’s now. Every- 
thing was hers. He and Mildred had said they were 
glad she had taken the place out of the commission 
merchants’ hands. And yet here he was, actually 
hiding among the blackberry and sassafras bushes, in 
terror of the coming interview with her. 

He lifted his hat and wiped his forehead nervously. 
It was not a warm day. It was a divinely beautiful 
one. Such blue immensities of skies overhead ! One 
lost sight of heaven’s vastness among the brick and 
stone environment of the city. His soul was full of 
an absolute content. 

To have died and been suddenly translated to a better 
world could scarcely have filled him with a keener 
sense of home-coming. 

Only, death would have brought permanence, cer- 
tainty, rest. And he was on his way to meet fresh 
changes, graver uncertainties, possible unrest. This 
formidable lady held it all in her own potent hands. 

He was trudging along the wagon-road now, towards 
the house. He was the only moving thing in sight, 
excepting : — 


AN OLD FOGY. 


28l 


A black-winged bird poised on motionless wings, 
secure, majestic, free, far above him in the deep blue 
caverns of the skies. It was a vulture. A hideous, 
loathsome scavenger of the air, whose only grace was 
in his flight. The vulture soared higher on ambitious 
wings. It became the merest speck of black, and van- 
ished. 

He was nearing the yard-fence, now. How smart 
and prosperous it looked in its coat of fresh paint. 
Not a picket missing. Whole panels had been down 
at the date of his “ abdication.” 

“ Poor Milly, how she used to worry over the pigs 
getting into the yard overnight to root for coco-grass 
nuts among her violets. She would have set great 
store by this trustworthy fence.” 

His hand was on the gate-latch now. It was hard to 
remember, at that moment, that he was lifting it as a 
visitor. It was Miss Winston’s gate now. It was nec- 
essary at every step to remind himself of her mistress- 
ship in order to efface any sense of his own mastership. 

He hoped, that later on, she would give the place an- 
other name. As long as it was called Burnett’s Hol- 
low he was afraid he would feel a proprietary interest 
in it. 

He was standing on the gallery now, with bared 
head. It was an act of reverence. He was on sacred 
ground. The dear old house, the strange new house, 
behind his back. The very planks under his feet 


282 


AN OLD FOGY. 


spoke of a changed regime, a more prosperous era. So 
he should have liked to have kept things for Mildred. 

He walked to the end of the gallery, softly, almost 
rising to tip-toes. Doubtless Miss Winston was 
inside, somewhere, and she might resent this familiarity 
with her premises, but he should like to have one 
unwitnessed interview with all the old landmarks. 

The freshly spaded garden lay just off the end of 
the gallery. The gardener’s spade was sticking in the 
last clod he had turned. Some hens were scratching 
in the new-made beds. A great Plymouth Rock 
rooster was clucking encouragement to them. That 
was the bed Mildred used always to plant the early- 
rose potatoes in. 

He wondered if Jeffrey Dennison was still gardener 
at the Hollow. Mildred had found him very satisfact- 
ory. But he was old, and might have died. 

It seemed to the Colonel as if half a century had 
passed since he and Mildred had said good-bye to old 
Jeff, and yet the jonquils had only bloomed twice 
since their flitting. 

There was a mist before his eyes when he turned 
resolutely, and, walking back to the closed front-door, 
knocked timidly at first, vigorously a second time. 
The sound reverberated through an empty house. No 
answer came from within. He tried the handle. The 
door was locked. Queer, how chilled he felt ! The 
old home stood barring him out. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


283 

He swung slowly on his heel to face the fields again. 
They lay bathed in sunshine. The wagon-road stretched 
long and straight between the grass-fringed ditches. 
From the direction of Dividing Ridge a horse and rider 
suddenly appeared, coming directly towards him. The 
Colonel looked at both with keen appreciation. 

“ A lady, and a superb animal under her. She has 
a fine seat in the saddle. Miss Winston, of course.” 

He was glad to get that advance view of her. By 
the time she was ready to dismount he would be “quite 
sure of ” himself. 

And by the time Marcella drew the black horse up 
in front of the new carriage-block, the Colonel was 
standing by it, hat in hand, ready to lift her from the 
saddle. 

She stretched out her hand in cordial greeting before 
dismounting. 

“ This is Colonel Burnett, of course. I did not expect 
to find you here. I supposed you would land at Rosalia 
and drive over.” 

“ I preferred walking across the fields. Permit me.” 

And with the gallantry of another day, he put his 
hands firmly about her waist and lifted her to the 
ground. 

“ You have not moved over yet ? ” 

“ Not yet.” 

She was looking at him with clear earnest eyes. 
How worn and anxious his face was ! 


284 


AN OLD FOGY. 


He had never seen her since the day her father had 
ridden over to The Hollow to bid them good-bye 
before joining his regiment. Then she was a shy, 
brown-eyed child, girlishly proud of her fathers gray 
uniform. Into what a stately lady she had devel- 
oped ! 

“ Of course you find the place changed,” she said, 
taking the plunge with a little catch in her even 
tones. 

“ Much changed — and greatly improved.” 

“ I hope you and Mrs. Burnett will like everything 
I have done. The repairs are hardly complete yet.” 

This was in questionable taste, the Colonel thought. 
He answered stiffly : 

“ Doubtless your more cultivated taste found very 
much that was amiss.” 

“ I found a very lovely old place, demanding some 
renovation. My taste was sufficiently cultivated to 
teach me what not to meddle with.” 

“ Thank you. Mrs. Burnett would thank you too, 
if she could see the old place.” 

Marcella smiled inscrutably. 

“ Come,” she said, and led the way with such direct- 
ness that there was nothing for him to do but fol- 
low. 

Quite an hour passed before, standing on the hearth- 
rug in the old-new dining-room, the mistress of Bur- 
nett’s Hollow motioned him to a chair by the window 


AN OLD FOGY. 285 

that overlooked the honeysuckle trellis. She was draw- 
ing off her gloves with absent-minded deliberation. 

“ I am glad you approve of what I have done. Per- 
haps it will incline you to hear my confession more 
leniently.” 

“ Your confession ! ” 

He withdrew his eyes from the honeysuckles to 
stare at her in surprise. She was loosening the ribbon 
draw-strings to a black silk bag, which, hanging from 
her left wrist, had gone with them on their tour of 
inspection over the premises. 

“Yes, my confession.” She took a seat near him, 
and folding her hands on her lap leaned towards him 
with a grave, sweet smile. “ And after I begin it, you 
are not to speak until I give you permission. Above 
everything, please do not interrupt me with polite 
deprecation.” 

Then, rapidly and succinctly she told him about the 
finding of the mortgage among the papers her father 
had evidently entrusted to him, when starting for the 
seat of war. Also, of that yellow copy of a letter 
written by mortgagee to mortgagor. She drew it from 
her bag and handed it to him. 

“ Did you never see the original of that letter, 
Colonel Burnett ? ” 

The Colonel read it and handed it back with unsmil- 
ing courtesy. 

“ Never. My father was not a systematic man, and, 


286 


AN OLD FOGY. 


as that letter was simply an expression of friendly 
sympathy from one good man towards another, it has 
no legal force whatever. You perceive he distinctly 
says it is not legally binding. I am sorry you should 
have permitted it to disturb you. This time-stained 
sheet is valuable, Miss Winston, only so far as it goes 
to show how finely those two gentlemen of the old 
school knew how to comport themselves. It in no 
wise jeopardizes your possession of Burnett’s Hollow.” 

“ I am glad to hear you say so,” she said calmly, 
“ for I love the place dearly. When I found that 
letter in the wallet that had lain under your very feet 
for so many years, I gloated over that clause with 
unholy glee.” 

“ Naturally,” said the Colonel, frigidly. 

She caught her breath quickly, and went on rapidly, 
with a slightly heightened color. 

“ I did not examine the wallet any farther that night, 
nor the next, nor for a month of nights after. Frankly, 
I did not want to. It was not a pleasant task. It was 
like holding communication with family ghosts. And, 
then, after I got interested in my work here, I forgot 
all about the old wallet. It did not seem likely that 
papers which had been buried for more than a quarter 
of a century could be of much importance to any one. 
But, one rainy day, when I was imprisoned and lonely, 
the family ghosts beckoned to me again, and I gave 
heed to them. This was my second find.” 


AN OLD FOGY. 287 

She leaned towards him with a second yellow sheet 
fluttering from her trembling fingers. 

“ It is a copy of a letter written by my father to his 
lawyers. It would seem as if he had grown a little 
nervous over the one he had written to Mr. Burnett.” 

What the Colonel read, was : 

“ Messrs. Hightower and Sloan. — To-morrow I 
leave with my regiment for Richmond. The fortunes 
of war are so uncertain, that no sensible man will leave 
any more loose ends to his affairs than can be helped. 

“ You are aware that I hold a heavy mortgage against 
the Burnett Hollow place, for money loaned. 

“ Personally I entertain the highest feelings of 
brotherly regard for my friend Burnett. In case that 
infamous emancipation proclamation goes into force, 
he will be badly crippled. I hardly think it likely I 
shall be away from my place longer than ninety days, 
but, in case the contest assumes proportions not now 
foreseeable, and the cause of the Truth should be lost, 
I would hate to think of my heirs persecuting my 
neighbor for years to come. I am no Shylock. I 
should like you to put things legally in shape, so that, 
should adversity overtake my old neighbor, the mort- 
gage be reduced by one half ; but I also desire, in my 
daughters behalf, that you see it is made so binding 
in its reduced shape that she shall not be left without 
her diminished share of the debt owing me. 

“ I have written this hurriedly and under disturbing 
conditions, but you will accept it as power of attorney 
from me, to readjust the mortgage on an equitable 
basis.” 


288 


AN OLD FOGY. 


“ Which they did not do,” said the Colonel, handing 
back the second document. 

“ I have since learned,” said Marcella, holding her 
bag open to peer into its depths, “ that both of them 
went into the army very soon after papa did. Those 
were exacting times.” 

“ Very.” 

The Colonel had grown very pale while reading the 
second letter. Across its yellow face seemed written 
in letters of living fire what might have been. 

“ I am sorry you should have been so disturbed 
by ghosts that ought to have been laid long ago. 
Your father simply underestimated the duration of 
the war and its attendant ruin. But I fancy we are 
dealing with dead issues.” 

“ My lawyer thinks differently. He is Mr. Owens, 
who, as perhaps you know, succeeded to the business 
of Hightower and Sloan. Might I trouble you to read 
one more letter? It is from Mr. Owens, and it was 
after receiving it that I telegraphed for you.” 

And what the Colonel read this time was : 

“ ‘ My Dear Miss Winston — Referring to the 
letter of your father to Messrs. Hightower and Sloan, 
I have to say : 

‘“We find the original on file among the papers be- 
longing to Winston’s succession. We are of opinion 
that it is legally binding on you unless you desire to 
plead statute of limitations. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


289 

“ ‘ Aware as we are of the chivalric punctilio with 
which Colonel Ethbert Burnett protected your inter- 
ests, we find it difficult to advise you. 

“ * We simply await your orders.’ ” 

The Colonel laid this letter back in her lap, and 
leaned back with a deep-drawn sigh. 

“ A very courteous letter, and personally very flat- 
tering to me. It is strange that so important a letter 
should have been overlooked, but Owen was young 
when he took up the old firm’s business, and the period 
immediately succeeding the war was one of much con- 
fusion.” 

Marcella looked at him curiously. This whole busi- 
ness had been so agitating to her that she marvelled 
at his composure. Was he acting a part? 

“ Have you no questions to ask me, Colonel Bur- 
nett ? Not a single one ? ” 

“ I can think of none at the moment. I think I 
understand now what you meant by complications. 
Farther than that, I presume you will volunteer any 
information you consider me entitled to.” 

“ I consider you entitled to Burnett’s Hollow.” 

“ Madam ! Surely you are not capable of jesting on 
such a subject ? ” y 

“ I consider you entitled to Burnett’s Hollow,” she 
repeated very quietly. 

“ I am not giving it back to you. I am afraid I am 
not capable of such generosity. Mr. Owen says it does 
19 


290 


AN OLD FOGY. 


not belong to me. He says when you mortgaged the 
place afresh to your merchants, you paid me the full 
amount of the original debt, which it seems I was 
not entitled to. By my father’s command the debt 
was to have been remitted if the slaves were freed. 
My lawyers say that, calculating the amount you paid 
me over what was due to me, with accruing interest, 
the sum amounts to the price I paid for the Hollow. 

“ I don’t think I will try to make it clear to you to- 
day. I might snarl the figures all up. I never was 
good at compounding interest. But Mr. Owen is to be 
here this morning to meet you. He will bring all the 
papers necessary to prove to you that Burnett’s Hollow 
is yours — not mine.” 

She paused — she wished he would say something. 
He seemed turned to stone. 

“ You see,” she said, smiling brightly, “we might 
have gone into a legal fight. You might have had a 
lawyer and paid him big fees, and so might I, but my 
own lawyer would have turned and rent me.” 

He tried to say something, but his tongue was dry 
and unresponsive. 

“ I hope Mrs. Burnett will like what I have done,” said 
Marcella. “ You know now why I asked you to come.” 

“ Mildred ! She will ” 

But the revulsion had been too great. The Colonel’s 
gray head sank slowly on his breast. Two tears rolled 
over his furrowed cheeks. The bitterness of exile was 
past. 


AN OLD FOGY. 


2gl 


CHAPTER XXV. 

“That is rather fine of Bert. Dear old fogy, he 
ought to have lived in the days of King Arthur.” 

“ What freak of chivalry now ? ” Mrs. Emily asked, 
and Tom and his wife stopped to listen. 

They were about starting over the bridge to select a 
wedding present for Meg. 

The Colonel had just gone away after a long private 
interview with his brother, that had left the family 
consumed with curiosity. 

“ Says that since Burnett Hollow has come back to 
him legally, of course sister Catherine and I are joint 
heirs.” 

“And what did you tell him, father?” Tom asked 
quickly. 

“ That if ever a fellow had earned a lot of dirt by the 
sweat of his brow, he has earned Burnett’s Hollow, 
and, as far as my share was concerned, he could count 
me out.” 

“ Of course. I am so glad, sir.” 

And Tom went about the task of selecting Mar- 
garet’s wedding present with alloyed happiness, for, as 


292 


AN OLD FOGY. 


soon as the marriage was over, the Colonel and Mrs. 
Burnett and Ollie were to go South. 

“ And that dear, delightful Miss Winston, is to live 
there with them for a year, at least/’ 

It was Kitty who had brought all the details back 
from the little flat, which was fairly a-glitter in those 
days with such finery as never an Fast-side flat was 
glorified by before. 

“ And U ncle Bert looks two inches taller and cent- 
uries younger. Aunt Mildred says she has a plant in 
her garden at home called the Oxalis. You cannot 
transplant it. It shrivels and dwindles when you take 
it from its native soil, but left there, it is sturdy and 
admirable in every way. I think Uncle Bert must 
belong to the Oxalis family.” 

It was Tom who answered enthusiastically : 

“ I am glad my uncle is going home, because he 
wants to go, but I am sorry to have him go where I 
can no longer be uplifted and strengthened by the 
lofty idealism of the grandest old fogy of the nine- 
teenth century.” 


THE END. 


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